Name: Sally Lunn Cake
Ingredients: 1 quart all-purpose flour; ½ cup butter, softened; 1 tumbler (1 cup) milk; 2 large eggs; 3 tablespoons sugar; 2 teaspoons cream of tartar; 1 teaspoon baking soda; ¼ teaspoon salt

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 ↓

Sally Lunn 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Rub the butter into the flour until well combined.
Add the milk, eggs, sugar, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt; mix until smooth.
Pour the batter into a round or square pan.

Bake and serve

Bake until golden and a toothpick comes out clean, about 25-30 minutes.
Serve warm with butter.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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: Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, giving the crumb a tender texture.
Eggs: Add structure and moisture, helping the cake set as it bakes.
Cream of tartar: Acidifies the batter and reacts with baking soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that lifts the cake.
Milk: Adds moisture and helps form a smooth batter that bakes into a tender crumb.

“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.