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Dessert

Soda Cake

A moist cake made with beef dripping, sugar, fruit, flour, baking soda, spices, eggs, and milk, baked at 300°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Soda Cake

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Soda Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Rub the baking soda and spices through the flour.

  2. Rub the beef dripping into the flour mixture.

  3. Add the sugar and mixed fruit, and mix well in the dry state.

  4. Gradually add the beaten eggs and milk, adjusting the milk as needed for moisture. The mixture should be moist; do not overbeat.

Bake

  1. Pour into a greased tin and bake for three hours at 300°F (150°C).

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add richness and structure as they set in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity in the mix to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Beef dripping
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Flour
Provides the structure that the eggs and rising agent lift and set.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the crumb stay soft.
Milk or buttermilk
Adds liquid to hydrate the flour and, with buttermilk, acidity for the soda to react with.

The step that matters

Mixing the batter. Overbeating develops gluten in the flour, which makes the cake tough and dense. Mix only until the eggs and milk are combined and the batter is moist.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, egg, milk. 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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