Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Sugar Cakes
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.
Make the dough
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, mix the sour cream, butter, and sugar until well combined.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Stir in the baking soda and powdered mace.
Gradually add flour until the dough is firm enough to roll out.
Shape and bake
Roll out the dough and cut into desired shapes.
Place on a baking sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes or until lightly golden.
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.
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour 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
- Sour cream
- Adds moisture and acidity that keeps the cakes tender.
- Butter
- Provides fat that creams with sugar to give a rich, tender crumb.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the dough and helps it brown lightly in the oven.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, binding the dough as it sets.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic sour cream to help the cakes rise.
The step that matters
Adding the flour. Flour should be added gradually until the dough is firm enough to roll out. Too much flour makes the cakes dry and tough, while too little leaves the dough sticky and hard to shape.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, butter, sugar, egg, flour):
- Nutmegfits better
- Cinnamonfits better
- Capersfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cream, butter, sugar, egg, 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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