Name: Economy Cakes
Ingredients: three pints put one teaspoon of salt; one teaspoon of soda dissolved in milk; one pint of wheat; three eggs; salt

Why it works: Milk and wheat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Economy Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bread

Cut sour bread into small pieces.
If not used immediately, dry the pieces in a moderately hot oven for several weeks, taking care not to burn them.
Soak the bread overnight in cold water.
Drain all the water in the morning.
Mash the bread finely.

Make the batter

For every three pints of mashed bread, add one teaspoon of salt, three eggs, one teaspoon of soda dissolved in milk, and one pint of wheat or rye flour.
Add enough milk to enable frying them as you would buck‑wheat cakes.
If the flour is mixed overnight with a large spoon of yeast, the eggs may be omitted.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

276Calories

14 gProtein

13 gFat

25 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 5 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 4 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Milk	1 cup (244ml) whole	149
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Wheat	not in our table	0

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

By Des Moines. Plymouth church. [from old catalog]. 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.

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.

Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,418 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Wheat + eggtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,225 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the cakes.
Baking soda: Reacts with the sour bread and acidity to lighten the cakes.
Wheat flour: Provides starch and gluten that give the cakes body and structure.

“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.