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Dessert

Drop Cakes

Drop cakes are small cakes made by spooning batter onto baking sheets and baking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Drop Cakes

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 ↓

Drop Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. Mix 2 teaspoons of baking powder with the flour and sift it 2 or 3 times.

  3. In a clean bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until smooth.

  4. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

  5. Stir in the flour mixture and add enough milk to achieve a batter consistency.

  6. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix in any remaining ingredients.

Drop and bake

  1. Place sheets of kitchen paper on baking trays.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of batter onto the paper, spacing them about 1 inch apart.

  3. Dust lightly with sugar and bake for 1 hour.

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.

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.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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
Creams with the sugar to give the cakes a tender, rich texture.
Castor sugar
Creams with the butter and adds sweetness and browning during baking.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cakes as the batter sets in the oven.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, binding the batter as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cakes rise and become light.

The step that matters

Adding milk to the batter. Too much milk makes the batter thin and the drops spread flat, while too little makes dense, dry cakes. Aim for a consistency that holds its shape when dropped from a spoon.

“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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