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Dessert

Sour Cream Cakes

A moist cake made with sour cream, eggs, sugar, flour, spices, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sour Cream 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.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the sour cream and baking soda.

  2. Add the eggs and sugar, and beat until well combined.

  3. Stir in the flour, nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon, vanilla, and raisins.

  4. Spoon the batter into muffin pans.

Bake

  1. Bake for 20-25 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 tang, and its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour cream's acidity to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Eggs
Provide structure as they set in the oven and add richness to the crumb.
Flour
Forms the gluten and starch network that gives the cake its structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep the crumb tender and moist.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda to the sour cream. Baking soda needs an acidic partner to react and release gas. Mixing it into the sour cream first lets the reaction start in the batter, so the cake rises well. Baking soda left undissolved can leave dark or bitter spots.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Clovefits about as well
  3. Allspicethe original
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, sugar, flour, nutmeg, cinnamon, vanilla. 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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