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Dessert

Soda Batter Cakes

Soda batter cakes are quick cakes made with eggs, sour milk, bicarbonate of soda, flour, and served with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Soda Batter 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.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs well with the sour milk.

  2. Add the bicarbonate of soda and gradually stir in enough flour to make a stiff batter.

  3. Let the batter rise until smooth.

Bake and serve

  1. Divide the batter into equal portions and lay them on a floured baking sheet, spaced apart.

  2. Bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) until cooked.

  3. Serve immediately on a hot dish with a folded napkin, and enjoy cut open with butter.

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 + buttertop 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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the cakes as they cook.
Sour milk
Provides moisture and acidity that reacts with the bicarbonate of soda to lighten the batter.
Bicarbonate of soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to release gas, making the cakes rise.
Flour
Forms the stiff batter's structure, setting as the cakes bake.

The step that matters

Let the batter rise until smooth. Bicarbonate of soda begins releasing gas as soon as it meets the sour milk's acid, so the batter should be shaped and baked promptly to keep that lift. Waiting too long lets the gas escape, leaving flatter cakes.

“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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