Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
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.
Prepare the batter
Break the egg into a cup.
Fill the cup with thin sour cream and mix with the sugar.
In a bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt.
Add the cream mixture to the dry ingredients and mix until smooth.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan or patty pans.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden and a toothpick comes out clean.
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.
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,481 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
- Egg
- Adds structure and richness, helping the batter set as it bakes.
- Sour cream
- Adds moisture and tenderness, and its acidity reacts with the baking soda.
- Flour
- Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the sour cream's acidity to produce gas that lifts the cake.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps it brown during baking.
The step that matters
Mixing the batter until smooth. Mixing the wet and dry ingredients just until combined keeps the gluten in the flour from overdeveloping, which would make the cake tough. Stirring well enough to fully combine the baking soda avoids pockets of uneven rise.
“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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