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Dessert

Recipe for Bran Cakes

A quick baked cake made with bran flour, butter, eggs, baking soda, and 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 ↓

Recipe for 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 with the bran flour.

  2. Beat the butter in a bowl until soft.

  3. Gradually add the bran flour mixture to the butter, beating continuously.

  4. Warm the eggs in a separate bowl until milk-warm, then stir them into the mixture gradually.

  5. Beat the mixture well for at least 10 minutes, adding the warm milk gradually.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into well-buttered tins or patty pans.

  2. Bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 10 minutes, until they easily turn out of the tin.

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
Provides the base structure and body of the cakes.
Eggs
Add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the batter.
Bicarbonate of soda
Reacts to lift the batter so the cakes rise.
Warm milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter.

The step that matters

Beating the batter for at least 10 minutes. Long beating incorporates air and builds the batter's structure, helping the cakes rise and hold their shape. Adding the eggs and milk gradually keeps the emulsion stable so the batter does not curdle or separate.

“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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