Name: Crumb Cake
Ingredients: one-half cupful butter into one cupful flour; one cupful of sugar; one-fourth teaspoonful grated nutmeg; one-half teaspoonful salt; half cupful of the mixture; one cupful flour; one-half cupful sour milk; a teaspoonful of cinnamon; a teaspoon of soda

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Crumb Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Rub one-half cupful of butter into one cupful of flour.
Add one cupful of sugar, a teaspoonful of cinnamon, one-fourth teaspoonful grated nutmeg, and one-half teaspoonful of salt.
Set aside one-half cupful of the mixture for topping and bottom.

Bake

To the remainder add one cupful of flour, one-half cupful of sour milk, and a teaspoon of soda.
Bake in a slow oven.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

773Calories

21 gProtein

22 gFat

123 gCarbs

What these numbers assume: 7 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Sour Milk	1 cup (244ml) whole	149
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Nutmeg	1 tsp ground (2.2g)	12
Cinnamon	1 tsp ground (2.6g)	6
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By United Methodist Church (Grayville, Ill.). 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. See the original page.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Rubbed into flour to create a crumbly mixture that gives the cake its texture.
Flour: Provides the structure that holds the cake together once baked.
Sour milk: Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the soda to help the cake rise.
Soda: Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas, helping the cake rise.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown in the oven.

“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.