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Dessert

Soda Cakes, Very Superior

A quick soda cake made with flour, soda, butter, yeast, salt, cream of tartar, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Hodgson, Mary, fl. 1855 · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Soda Cakes, Very Superior

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Sift three teaspoons of cream of tartar into three pints of flour.

  2. Rub one quarter pound of butter into the flour.

  3. Dissolve one teaspoon of soda in as much milk as will make a dough thick enough to roll out.

Shape and rise

  1. Take a large spoonful of dough.

  2. Sift flour on the board.

  3. Roll out the dough.

  4. Bake the cakes.

  5. Do not touch the cakes with your hands.

Make the batter

  1. Rub half a pound of butter into three pounds of flour and a teaspoonful of salt.

  2. Warm the milk and pour it over the mixture until a thick batter forms.

  3. Beat the batter well, then add a cup of good yeast.

  4. Do not beat after the yeast is added; let it rise.

Cut and bake

  1. When the batter is quite light, mix in flour as little as possible to make it out.

  2. Roll it out.

  3. Cut into cakes with a small tumbler.

  4. Let the cakes rise again.

  5. Bake as soon as they are light.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

806Calories
22 gProtein
26 gFat
120 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Salt1 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 Hodgson, Mary, fl. 1855. 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.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the cakes as the dough sets in the oven.
Butter
Coats the flour particles, giving the cakes a tender, short texture.
Cream of tartar
Provides acid that reacts with the soda to release gas and lighten the dough.
Baking soda
Releases carbon dioxide when it meets the acid, helping the cakes rise.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, lifting the batter so the cakes become light.
Milk
Adds moisture that brings the flour together into a dough and batter.

The step that matters

Stop beating once the yeast is added. Beating after the yeast goes in knocks out the gas bubbles it has made and toughens the gluten, so the cakes rise less and turn dense.

“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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