Why it works: Nutmeg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Drop Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the batter
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) and grease muffin pans.
Beat the eggs and sugar together until well combined.
Add the sour cream (and butter if using) to the egg mixture and mix well.
Stir in the baking soda, salt, and grated nutmeg.
Gradually add enough flour to achieve a thick batter, similar to pound cake.
Bake
Drop a tablespoonful of batter into each muffin pan ring.
Bake in the preheated oven, allowing it to cool slightly as they bake.
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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Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
-
Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,920 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
- Eggs
- Provide structure and richness as they set during baking, giving the cakes their body.
- Sour cream
- Adds moisture and tenderness, and its acidity works with the baking soda to lift the batter.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic sour cream to produce gas that helps the cakes rise.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps browning and a tender crumb.
- Flour
- Forms the structure that holds the thick batter together as the cakes set.
The step that matters
Gradually add enough flour. Adding flour too quickly or in excess can make the batter stiff and dense, while too little leaves it slack and unable to hold its shape. Stopping at a thick, pound-cake-like consistency gives the drop cakes structure without toughness.
Swap the currant
The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, cream, nutmeg, flour):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Lemonfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, cream, nutmeg, flour. 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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