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Dessert

Oswego Cakes

A sweet cake made with cornflour, plain flour, eggs, butter, sugar, baking powder, milk, and almond extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Oswego Cakes

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix cornflour, plain flour, sugar, and baking powder.

  3. In another bowl, whip the eggs.

Make the batter

  1. Melt the butter and mix it with the whipped eggs.

  2. Combine the egg and butter mixture with the dry ingredients.

  3. Add milk if the batter is too thick and a few drops of almond extract.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan and bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown.

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Cornflour
Gives the cake a tender, fine crumb because it has little gluten.
Eggs
Whipped to trap air and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a soft, moist texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown as it bakes.
Plain flour
Adds gluten-based structure that holds the cake together with the cornflour.

The step that matters

Adding milk to the batter. The batter should be thick enough to hold its shape but loose enough to pour and bake evenly. Add milk gradually, since too much thins the batter and can make the cake dense or flat.

“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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