Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Cider Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Mix the flour, brown sugar, butter or lard, cider, and pearlash together until well combined, then add spices to your taste.
Shape and bake
Shape the mixture into a cake.
Bake until the cake turns easily in the pan.
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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Flour + buttertop 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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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Butter + cidertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,012 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Sugar + cidertop 27% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,308 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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
- Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown.
- Butter or lard
- Adds fat for a tender crumb and richer flavour.
- Cider
- Provides moisture and tang, and its acidity reacts with pearlash to lift the cake.
- Pearlash
- Acts as a leavening agent, releasing gas that makes the cake rise.
The step that matters
Judging when the cake is done. Pearlash starts lifting the cake as soon as it is mixed, so the cake should be baked promptly. An underbaked centre stays wet and can sink as it cools, while overbaking dries the crumb. Checking that the cake turns easily in the pan shows the structure has set.
“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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