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Dessert

Warm Cream Cake

A warm cake made with sour cream, butter, eggs, baking soda, ginger, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Warm Cream Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the sour cream and butter until well combined.

  2. Add the eggs, baking soda, and ground ginger, mixing thoroughly.

  3. Gradually add flour until the batter reaches a consistency similar to ordinary cake batter.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake until golden brown.

  2. Serve hot with butter.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Ginger + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Sour cream
Adds moisture and tang, keeping the cake tender and slightly acidic.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the batter reaches a consistency similar to ordinary cake batter. Adding too much flour at once or too much overall makes the batter stiff and the cake dense. Adding it gradually lets you stop when the batter has the right thickness for a light, tender crumb.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, butter, egg, flour):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, butter, egg, 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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