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Dessert

Honey Cake

A simple cake made with sugar, sour cream, flour, baking soda, and honey.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Honey Cake

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Honey Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. Mix the sugar and sour cream together.

  2. Dredge in the flour and add enough honey to flavor the mixture nicely.

  3. Stir well to thoroughly mix all ingredients.

  4. Add the baking soda and beat the mixture for another 5 minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour into a buttered tin and bake for 30 to 45 minutes.

  2. Serve warm.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + honeytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,932 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Flour + honeytop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,637 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

Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown and feel tender.
Rich sour cream
Adds moisture, richness and acidity that reacts with the baking soda.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour cream's acidity to release gas that lifts the batter.
Honey
Adds sweetness and a distinctive floral aroma and flavor.

The step that matters

Add the baking soda and beat. Baking soda starts reacting with the sour cream's acid as soon as it is added, so the batter should go into the tin and oven promptly. Delay lets the gas escape and the cake rises less.

“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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