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Dessert

Soda Cake

A quick cake made with baking soda, sugar, egg, milk, flour, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Soda Cake

Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

Soda 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 batter

  1. In a bowl, mix together the sugar, butter (the size of an egg), and egg until well combined.

  2. Add the cream of tartar, baking soda, and sweet milk; mix thoroughly.

  3. Season with lemon to taste.

  4. Gradually work in the flour until fully incorporated.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) 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.

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

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

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour 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

Cream of tartar
Acidic partner to baking soda, reacting to release gas that lifts the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid to produce carbon dioxide, giving the cake its rise.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps set the crumb as it bakes.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure that holds the cake's shape as it sets.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the crumb tender and browning in the oven.
Sweet milk
Supplies liquid that hydrates the flour and dissolves the leavening.

The step that matters

Adding the cream of tartar and baking soda with the milk. Cream of tartar and baking soda start releasing gas as soon as they are wet, so the batter should be mixed thoroughly and baked promptly to keep that gas trapped for a good rise.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, cream, milk, flour):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, cream, milk, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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