Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
A Delicious Cream-cake and Sweet Rusks
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Crumble the butter into the flour.
Mix in the sugar, salt, and candied citron or orange rind.
Combine the cream and whisked eggs, then add to the mixture.
Before filling the buttered molds, blend in the carbonate of soda with twice the quantity of sugar and flour.
Bake and serve
Fill the molds two-thirds full and bake for about 45 minutes.
For rusks, pull apart the cake with forks while hot and return to the oven to crisp.
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.
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour 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
- Butter
- Rubbed into the flour to add richness and a tender, crumbly texture.
- Fine flour
- Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps it brown during baking.
- Sour cream
- Adds moisture and richness, and its acidity reacts with the soda.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure and richness.
- Carbonate of soda
- Reacts with the sour cream's acidity to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
The step that matters
Blending the carbonate of soda. Soda must be evenly distributed through the batter, so it is mixed with extra sugar and flour before filling the molds. Clumps leave bitter patches and uneven rising, while the soda needs acid from the sour cream to work properly.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, sugar, cream, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, sugar, cream, egg. 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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