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Baking

Court Cake

A sweet cake made with sugar, butter, sour milk, flour, raisins, baking soda, and vanilla or lemon extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Court Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure. The book gives no cooking times; 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. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk and add it to the mixture.

  4. Stir in the flour, raisins, and vanilla or lemon extract.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan and bake for about 45-50 minutes.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Raisin + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together782 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the cake tender and moist.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in sour milk to produce gas that helps the cake rise.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk. Baking soda needs an acid to release gas, and the sour milk supplies it. Dissolving the soda fully in the milk first spreads it evenly, so the cake rises uniformly instead of forming pockets or bitter patches.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Coconutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, flour, 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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