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Dessert

Cup Cakes

A sweet baked dessert made with butter, sugar, milk, flour, eggs, baking soda, and optional currants, raisins, almonds, or lemon extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cup 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 bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

  2. Add the beaten yolks of the eggs and mix well.

  3. Stir in the milk and any desired flavoring.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture.

  6. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  7. If desired, mix in currants, raisins, or almonds before baking.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into buttered gem pans or drop spoonfuls onto buttered flat tins.

  2. Bake 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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter and the beaten whites lighten it for a tender crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Butter
Creamed with the sugar, it adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the cakes rise.
Cream of tartar
Provides acidity that activates the baking soda, aiding rise and a tender texture.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Beaten whites trap air that gives lift. Vigorous stirring knocks that air out, leaving dense cakes, so fold in lightly until just combined.

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg, cream, almond):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg, cream, almond. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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