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Dessert

Indian Cup Cakes

A quick cake made with Indian meal, butter, salt, boiling milk, and eggs, baked in cups.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Indian Cup Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Scald the Indian meal with boiling milk.

  2. Add the butter and salt, mixing well.

  3. Beat the eggs separately, then fold them into the mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into cups and bake immediately.

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

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

  2. Coffee + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Coffee + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Indian meal
Forms the body of the batter and gives the cupcakes their structure and grainy texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the cupcakes as they bake.
Boiling milk
Hydrates the cornmeal so it softens and thickens the batter.

The step that matters

Bake immediately after folding in the eggs. Once the beaten eggs are folded in, the batter begins to lose air and its leavening power over time, so baking right away helps the cupcakes rise and set lightly.

“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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