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Buttermilk Cakes

A simple baked cake made from wholemeal flour, buttermilk, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Buttermilk Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Mix the flour with the salt.

Make the dough

  1. Add the buttermilk and stir until well combined.

  2. Roll out the dough and cut it into cakes.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 15 to 20 minutes.

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 + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Wholemeal flour
Provides the main structure and body of the dough, with bran giving a firmer, more textured crumb.
Buttermilk
Hydrates the flour to form the dough and adds gentle acidity that gives the cakes a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Adding the buttermilk and stirring. Stirring only until combined keeps gluten development limited, so the cakes stay tender. Overmixing makes the dough tough and dense.

“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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