Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Spice Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the batter
Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
In a bowl, cream together the brown sugar and butter.
Add the sour cream and mix well.
In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and add them to the mixture.
Dissolve the baking soda in the sour cream and add it to the mixture.
Sift the baking powder with enough flour to create a soft dough.
Combine all ingredients and mix until smooth.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased baking pan and bake slowly until done.
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.
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.
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour 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
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown and stay tender.
- Butter
- Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
- Sour cream
- Adds moisture and acidity, which activates the baking soda for rising.
- Eggs
- Provide structure and binding, and help the cake rise and set.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic sour cream to produce gas that lightens the batter.
- Baking powder
- Provides additional leavening so the cake rises during baking.
The step that matters
Dissolve the baking soda in the sour cream. Baking soda needs an acid to react and release carbon dioxide. Dissolving it in the sour cream before mixing spreads it evenly, so the cake rises uniformly rather than developing dense or bitter pockets.
“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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