Skip to main content
Dessert

Pop Ovebs

A quick cake baked in cups or shallow tins, made with milk, flour, eggs, butter, sugar, baking powder, and optionally strawberries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Ladies' Benevolent Society, First Congregational Church (Fall River, Mass .). Ladies' Benevolent Society, Mass.) First Congregational Church (Fall River · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 81,283 recipes mention both. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Pop Ovebs

Ingredients

Directions

Make and bake the cups

  1. Combine two eggs, two even cups flour sifted, two cups milk, a small piece of butter, and salt.

  2. Bake in cups in a hot oven.

  3. Bake for three quarters of an hour.

Make the second batter

  1. Combine one cup milk, two cups flour, one egg, two teaspoonfuls melted butter, two tablespoons sugar, and two teaspoonfuls baking powder.

  2. Bake in shallow tins.

Make the third batter and bake

  1. Sift together one quart of flour and three teaspoons of baking powder thoroughly and rub in one ounce of butter.

  2. Mix with a pint of sweet milk, using a spoon.

  3. Bake in two tins.

Serve

  1. When done, spread with butter and cover with strawberries previously mashed and sweetened.

By Ladies' Benevolent Society, First Congregational Church (Fall River, Mass .). Ladies' Benevolent Society, Mass.) First Congregational Church (Fall River. 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter share little aroma chemistry, yet 124,287 recipes mention both: they likely 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

Eggs
Provide structure and moisture, helping the batter set as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the structure of the batter as its proteins set in the oven.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form a smooth, pourable batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the heat, making the batter rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Mix with a pint of sweet milk. Stir only until the flour is just combined. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which makes the baked pops tough rather than light.

“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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes