Skip to main content
Baking

Sour Cream Cake

A layer cake made with butter, sugar, flour, eggs and milk, filled with whipped sour cream and ground almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Sour Cream Cake

Why it works: Vanilla and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Sour Cream 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.

Make the cake

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the milk, baking powder, and flour, mixing until smooth.

  4. Fold in the egg whites and vanilla.

  5. Pour the batter into jelly cake pans and bake until golden.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, whip the sour cream until thick.

  2. Beat the eggs separately and mix with the sugar and ground almonds.

  3. Add the vanilla and combine with the whipped sour cream.

  4. Spread the filling between the layers of 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Vanilla + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavour.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Egg whites
Add structure and lift to the batter when folded in, helping the cake rise and set.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and a tangy acidity that keeps the filling soft and rich.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cake rise and turn light.
Almonds
Add nutty flavour and body to the filling.

The step that matters

Pour the batter into jelly cake pans and bake until golden.. Batter baked too long dries out and turns tough, while underbaking leaves the centre dense and gummy. Watching for a golden colour and a set centre helps the layers bake evenly and stay moist.

“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.

More sour cream cake recipes

Filling 4 See all 42 →

You might also like

Delicate CakeDelicate Cake246 recipesBoiled FrostingBoiled Frosting69 recipesCitron CakeCitron Cake68 recipesScotch CakeScotch Cake63 recipes