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Dessert

Sour-milk Cakes

Sour Milk Cakes are a quick batter cake made with buttermilk, flour, Indian meal, molasses, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Buttermilk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Sour-milk Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Sift the flour, salt, and Indian meal into a bowl.

  2. In another bowl, mix the buttermilk, molasses, and baking soda until foamy.

  3. Pour the liquid mixture into the center of the dry ingredients.

  4. Stir the flour into the liquid with a wooden spoon until combined.

  5. Beat the batter vigorously with upward strokes for 2 minutes.

Cook

  1. Bake immediately on a hot griddle 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. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Buttermilk + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Buttermilk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to produce gas, lifting the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to release carbon dioxide, so the cake rises and turns light.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the cake its structure.
Indian meal
Adds coarse cornmeal texture and body to the batter.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, depth of flavor, and some moisture to the batter.

The step that matters

Bake immediately on a hot griddle. The soda and acid start releasing gas as soon as they mix, so the batter must reach the hot griddle right away or much of the lift is lost.

“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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