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Dessert

White Cup-cake

A sweet white cake made with flour, sugar, butter, eggs, baking soda, sour milk, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

White Cup-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.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs with the sugar until well combined.

  2. Mix the baking soda into the sour milk, then add the grated nutmeg and ground cinnamon to the sour milk mixture.

  3. Cream the butter and flour together in a large bowl.

  4. Add the egg and sugar mixture, followed by the sour milk mixture, and stir well.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased tin mold and bake until golden.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cupcake together as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that helps the cupcake rise.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tenderness.
Unsalted butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps brown the crust while adding tenderness.

The step that matters

Mix the baking soda into the sour milk before combining. Baking soda reacts with the acid in sour milk to release gas. Adding it at the right point, rather than letting the reaction sit too long, helps the cupcakes rise evenly and keeps the crumb light.

“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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