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Dessert

Breakfast and Tea Cakes

A quick oven-baked cake made with flour, baking soda, cream of tartar or baking powder, sour milk or buttermilk, greased with lard or beef drippings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,759 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Breakfast and Tea 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. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Sift the flour before measuring.

Mix the dough

  1. If using sour milk, mix 1 teaspoon of baking soda with it.

  2. For sweet milk, use 1 teaspoon of baking soda and 2 teaspoons of cream of tartar or 3 rounded teaspoons of baking powder.

  3. Combine the dry ingredients with the milk until just mixed.

  4. Handle the dough as little as possible to keep it soft.

Bake

  1. Shape the dough and place it on a greased baking sheet.

  2. Bake in the hot oven until golden brown.

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 + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Flour + beeftop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the dough as it sets in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in sour milk to produce gas that lifts the dough.
Cream of tartar
Supplies acid that reacts with baking soda to make the cakes rise in sweet milk.
Sour milk or buttermilk
Provides acid for the baking soda and moisture that keeps the cakes tender.

The step that matters

Handle the dough as little as possible. Mixing or kneading develops gluten in the flour, which makes the cakes tough. Light handling keeps them soft and tender, and the leavening gas is released best when the batter is not overworked.

“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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