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Dessert

Plain Cake

A simple cake made with flour, sugar, butter or dripping, egg, milk, baking powder, salt, and optional flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Plain Cake

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 ↓

Plain 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.

Prepare

  1. Weigh all ingredients.

  2. Grease and line a cake tin with parchment paper.

Make the batter

  1. Rub the dripping into the flour until crumbly.

  2. Add sugar, baking powder, and beaten egg.

  3. Mix in milk to achieve a soft consistency.

  4. Pour the batter into the prepared tin.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 40 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as it sets.
Dripping or unsalted butter
Coats flour particles to make the crumb tender and rich.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the heat so the cake rises.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and gives the batter its soft consistency.

The step that matters

Mix in milk to achieve a soft consistency. Adding too much milk or overmixing once the flour is wet can make the cake dense and tough, because gluten develops with mixing. Stop once the batter is soft and evenly combined.

“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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