Skip to main content
Dessert

Crumb-batter Cake

A cake made from soaked dry bread, eggs, flour, baking powder, milk, and salt, baked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Crumb-batter Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bread

  1. Break up the dry bread and pour a little hot water over it.

  2. Pass the soaked bread through a colander.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the bread mixture with the beaten yolks, flour, baking powder, salt, and milk.

  2. Stir in the beaten egg whites.

  3. If the batter is too thick, add more milk.

Cook

  1. Bake on a hot griddle 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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Dry bread
Soaked and passed through a colander, it forms the body and bulk of the batter.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites add lightness and help it rise.
All-purpose flour
Its starch sets during cooking, giving the cakes structure and a firm crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the cakes rise and turn tender.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter, and helps the surface brown.

The step that matters

Bake on a hot griddle until golden brown. A hot surface sets the outside quickly so the cakes hold their shape and brown, while the inside cooks through. A cool griddle lets the batter spread and turn pale and soggy.

“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.

You might also like

Bread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipesBrown Bread PuddingBrown Bread Pudding47 recipes