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 ↓
Dakota Cake
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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare the batter
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.
Add the egg yolks and sour milk, mixing well.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and nutmeg.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until smooth.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Flour
- Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
- Butter
- Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
- Sugar
- Creamed with butter to add sweetness and help create a tender texture.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness, moisture and help bind the batter.
- Sour milk
- Its acidity reacts with the baking soda and adds moisture and tenderness.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
The step that matters
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until smooth. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form. Stirring only until the batter is smooth avoids overmixing, which would make the cake tough and dense. Adding the dry ingredients gradually helps them combine evenly without lumps.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, sugar, butter, flour):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegthe original
- Jalapenofits less well
- Capersfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, sugar, butter, flour. 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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