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Dessert

Drop Cakes

Drop cakes are small cakes dropped into a hot oven, made from flour, baking powder, butter, eggs, sugar, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Drop Cakes

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Drop Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Sift the flour and baking powder together.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, rub the butter and sugar into the eggs until well combined.

  2. Add enough milk to create a light dough.

  3. Drop spoonfuls of the dough into small forms.

Bake

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

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.

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.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Provides the structure that sets as the cakes bake.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, making the cakes rise and turn light.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and add structure and richness as they set.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the surface brown in the oven.
Milk
Moistens the flour so the mixture forms a dough.

The step that matters

Add enough milk to create a light dough. Too much milk makes the mixture runny, so the spoonfuls spread out instead of holding their shape. Too little leaves it stiff and dry, so the cakes bake tough. The dough should be soft enough to drop but still hold its shape.

“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.

More drop cakes recipes

Rye 35Ginger 25Wheat 9Cornmeal 8Oatmeal 8Chocolate 7 See all 98 →

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