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Dessert

West Side Cake

A molasses cake made with baking soda, butter, egg yolks, and flour, baked in layers or as a single cake.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

West Side Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a coffee cup, mix the baking soda with hot water.

  2. Add the melted butter and egg yolks, then stir in the molasses.

  3. Beat the mixture well and thicken it with flour until desired consistency.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in two layers with frosting between, or as a single plain cake.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + molassestop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,123 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Baking soda
Reacts with the hot water and molasses to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter into a set crumb.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and a deep sweet flavor.
Melted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavor.
Flour
Thickens the batter to the desired consistency so it holds its structure while baking.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda to the hot water and molasses. Baking soda needs an acid to react fully; molasses supplies some acidity. Mixing it evenly into the liquid before adding flour spreads the gas-producing reaction through the batter, so the cake rises evenly instead of in patches.

“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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