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Dessert

Sally Lunn

A sweet, lightly leavened cake made with flour, milk, sugar, eggs, butter, salt, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Sally Lunn

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Sift the flour and cream of tartar together in a large bowl.

  3. In a separate bowl, dissolve the baking soda in the sweet milk.

Make the batter

  1. Add the milk mixture, sugar, eggs, and salt to the flour mixture. Mix well until combined.

  2. Pour the batter into shallow pans or cups.

Bake

  1. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its gluten and starch set in the oven.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter set and hold its rise.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Supplies acid that reacts with baking soda to lift the batter and add tang.
Sweet milk
Provides moisture and helps the flour hydrate into a batter.

The step that matters

Mix the batter and get it into the pans promptly. Baking soda and cream of tartar begin releasing gas as soon as they meet liquid. Mixing only until combined and baking soon after keeps that gas trapped in the batter, so the cake rises well rather than falling flat.

“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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