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Dessert

Railroad Cake

A cake made with flour, sugar, eggs, butter, milk, baking powder, and vanilla, baked in a loaf pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Railroad Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sift the flour three times before measuring.

  2. Measure 2 cups of flour and sift it with the baking powder into a bowl.

Make the batter

  1. Add the sugar without stirring.

  2. Make a depression in the center and drop in the unbeaten eggs.

  3. Melt the butter and pour it over the eggs.

  4. Gradually add the milk while stirring and beat until light and creamy.

  5. Flavor with vanilla. If the batter is too thick, add more milk a little at a time.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a loaf pan and cover with boiled icing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and help bind the batter together.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cake rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter to a smooth, pourable consistency.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the crumb tender and moist.

The step that matters

Gradually add the milk while stirring and beat until light and creamy.. Adding liquid slowly lets the batter blend into a smooth emulsion without curdling, and beating traps air that helps the cake rise evenly.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

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