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Dessert

Sour Cream Cake

A simple cake made with sour cream, eggs, sugar, flour, baking soda, salt, butter, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Sour Cream 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 ↓

Sour Cream Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Break 1 egg into a cup and fill the cup with sour cream.

  2. Pour the mixture into a mixing bowl and add 1 cup of sugar; mix well.

  3. Sift together 1½ cups of flour, ¼ teaspoon of baking soda, and ¼ teaspoon of salt; add to the bowl.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine ¼ cup of melted butter, 2 eggs, and ¼ cup of milk; mix well.

  5. Pour the liquid mixture into the dry ingredients and mix for 2 minutes.

Bake

  1. Spread the batter thicker around the edges of the pan.

  2. Bake in a cool oven at 300°F (150°C).

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Provide structure and richness as the batter sets in the oven.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and tenderness, and a mild tang to the crumb.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as the proteins set.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity of the sour cream to help the cake rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps tenderize the crumb and brown the crust.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a moist, tender texture.

The step that matters

Spread the batter thicker around the edges of the pan. Batter tends to rise higher in the center, so a thicker rim helps the cake bake more evenly and level out instead of domed or underdone at the edges.

“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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