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 ↓
Soda Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Sift the flour and carbonate of soda together to remove lumps.
Rub in the butter or lard until well combined.
Add the currants and candied peel, mixing well.
In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and milk together.
Mix the tartaric acid into the dry ingredients, then add the egg mixture.
Bake
Get the batter into the oven immediately.
Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1 hour and 15 minutes to 1 hour and 30 minutes.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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 + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Cream + buttertop 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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the cake as its starch sets during baking.
- Carbonate of soda
- Reacts with the tartaric acid to produce carbon dioxide, which makes the cake rise.
- Tartaric acid
- Acid that reacts with the carbonate of soda to release gas for rising.
- Butter or lard
- Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, helping the batter set as it bakes.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps browning in the bake.
The step that matters
Get the batter into the oven immediately. Once the acid and carbonate of soda are mixed into the wet batter, they begin releasing gas right away. Delaying the bake lets much of that gas escape, so the cake may rise poorly and turn out dense.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, cream, butter, egg, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, cream, butter, egg, 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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