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Dessert

Rye Drop Cakes

A simple rye cake made with milk, eggs, butter, baking soda, cream of tartar, sugar, and rye meal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Rye Drop Cakes

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Rye Drop 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the milk, beaten eggs, butter, baking soda, cream of tartar, and sugar.

  2. Add enough rye meal to create a thick batter.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto a baking sheet.

  2. Bake for 30 minutes or 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.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Milk + ryetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together918 recipes

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

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 structure as they set in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that lifts the cakes.
Cream of tartar
Provides acidity that works with baking soda to help the cakes rise.
Rye meal
Forms the thick batter and gives the cakes their hearty flavor and body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.

The step that matters

Drop spoonfuls of batter onto the baking sheet. The batter should be thick enough to hold its shape. A thin batter spreads out, so the cakes can lose height and turn flat and crisp at the edges.

“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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