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Rye Cakes

A quick baked cake made with rye and wheat flour, baking soda, sour milk, salt, and golden syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rye and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Rye Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Mix the rye and wheat flour together.

  2. Combine the baking soda with the sour milk and stir until bubbly.

  3. Add the flours, salt, and golden syrup to the mixture.

  4. Beat until stiff and pour into a buttered tin.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

  2. Smooth the top with a spoon dipped in milk before serving hot.

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. Rye + wheattop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Rye + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together918 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Rye flour
Gives a denser, earthy crumb because it forms less gluten than wheat flour.
Wheat flour
Provides gluten structure that holds the cakes together as they rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in sour milk to release gas that lifts the batter.
Sour milk
Supplies the acid needed for baking soda to react, and adds moisture.
Golden syrup
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the surface brown during baking.

The step that matters

Pour into the tin promptly after beating. Baking soda and acid release carbon dioxide quickly once mixed. Delaying the pour or baking lets the gas escape, leaving the cakes flatter and denser.

“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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