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Dessert

Sour Milk Rtjsk

A spiced cake made with sour milk, butter, sugar, eggs, flour, raisins, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Sour Milk Rtjsk

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Beat the eggs separately and add them to the butter and sugar mixture.

  3. Mix the baking soda into the sour milk and alternate adding it with the flour.

  4. Chop the raisins and add them to the mixture.

  5. Stir in the spices.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a shallow pan and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

  2. Serve as a coffee cake.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and add richness and tender texture.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk's acidity to produce gas, helping the cake rise.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tenderness.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Alternating the sour milk mixture with the flour. Adding the soda-milk mixture and flour in alternating portions keeps the batter evenly emulsified and lets the baking soda react fully, giving an even rise and a tender crumb rather than a dense or uneven cake.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, milk, sugar, egg, flour, raisin, cinnamon):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, sugar, egg, flour, raisin, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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