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Rye Cakes

Rye cakes are a batter-based cake made with rye flour, Indian meal, wheat flour, yeast, molasses, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Rye and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Rye Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the rye flour, Indian meal, and wheat flour in a bowl.

  2. Add cold water or milk to create a batter.

  3. Stir in salt and molasses.

  4. Add enough yeast to make the batter rise.

Bake and serve

  1. Just before baking, stir in the beaten egg.

  2. Grease your cake pans and pour in the batter.

  3. Bake until golden brown and serve hot.

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. Rye + wheattop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Rye + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together918 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Rye flour
Provides the characteristic flavour and a dense, tender crumb with less gluten structure than wheat.
Wheat flour
Supplies gluten to give the batter enough structure to hold its shape.
Indian meal
Adds a coarse, grainy texture and a toasty corn flavour to the cakes.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the batter rise and gives the cakes a light, airy texture.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, helping bind the batter as it sets.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and deep colour, and helps the cakes brown.

The step that matters

Adding the yeast to the batter. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce gas, so the batter must be left to rise before baking. Adding it too late or skipping the rise leaves the cakes dense and heavy.

“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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