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Dessert

Cider Cake

A cake made with butter, sugar, flour, cider, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cider Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth.

  2. Mix in the flour and rub until well combined.

  3. Quickly mix the baking soda with the cider and pour it into the dough while it is foaming, beating vigorously.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into well-buttered square pans.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about an hour, or until cooked through.

  3. Serve fresh at tea time, cut into squares, split and buttered.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + cidertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Sugar + cidertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Creamed with butter for sweetness and to help give a tender texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Cider
Supplies the liquid and its acidity, which reacts with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cider's acid to release gas that lightens the batter.

The step that matters

Mixing the baking soda with the cider. Baking soda reacts with the cider's acid right away and releases gas. If the mixture sits before going into the dough, the foam weakens and the cake rises less, so pour it in quickly while still foaming.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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