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Dessert

Bran Cakes

A quick bran cake made with bran flour, butter, bicarbonate of soda, eggs, and warm milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Bran Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Mix the bicarbonate of soda and bran flour together.

  2. In a hot bowl, beat the butter until creamy.

Make the batter

  1. Gradually add the bran flour and soda mixture to the butter while beating continuously.

  2. Beat the eggs in hot water until warm.

  3. Gradually stir the eggs into the flour mixture.

  4. Beat everything together for 10 minutes, adding the warm milk gradually.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into well-buttered patty pans.

  2. Bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 10 minutes.

  3. The cakes are done when they easily turn out of the pans.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Bran flour
Forms the main body of the cakes, giving them their bulk and structure.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the batter rich and gives the cakes a tender crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and trap air that helps the cakes rise and set.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter to a pourable consistency.

The step that matters

Gradually stir the eggs into the flour mixture. Adding the eggs slowly lets the fat and egg emulsify into the flour mixture. Adding them all at once can cause the batter to separate or curdle, which makes the cakes uneven.

“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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