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Dessert

Buttermilk Cakk

A simple cake made with buttermilk, sugar, butter, flour, and baking soda, optionally flavored with fruit or spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Buttermilk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Buttermilk Cakk

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 wet mix

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the buttermilk and sugar until combined.

  3. Melt the butter and add it to the mixture.

Make the batter

  1. In another bowl, combine the flour and baking soda.

  2. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until smooth.

  3. Fold in any desired fruit or spices.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan and bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Buttermilk + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Buttermilk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to lift the cake and keeps the crumb tender.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Sugar
Adds sweetness, softens the crumb, and helps the crust brown.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.

The step that matters

Adding the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Stirring only until smooth keeps the batter light. Overmixing develops too much gluten in the flour, which makes the cake dense and tough.

“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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