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Dessert

Cream Cakes

A batter of eggs, sour cream, sweet milk, baking powder, and flour baked in cups.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cream Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs separately.

  2. Combine the sour cream, sweet milk, and baking powder.

  3. Add flour gradually to create a thin batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into cups.

  2. Bake 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.

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Add structure and richness, helping the cakes set and hold their shape.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and a tangy flavour, keeping the crumb tender.
Sweet milk
Provides liquid to hydrate the flour and loosen the batter into a thin consistency.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the cakes to rise in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cakes as its proteins set during baking.

The step that matters

Adding the flour gradually. Adding flour slowly while mixing keeps the batter smooth and evenly thinned, preventing lumps. Overmixing once flour is fully incorporated can toughen the cakes by developing too much gluten.

“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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