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Buttermilk Cake

A simple cake made with flour, butter, sugar, sultanas, buttermilk, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Lightly rub the butter into the flour.

  2. Add the sugar and sultanas to the mixture.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the buttermilk.

  4. Make a well in the mixture and pour in the buttermilk.

Mix and bake

  1. Mix with a spoon until just combined; do not overmix.

  2. Pour the batter into a buttered square cake tin.

  3. Bake for 1 hour in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C).

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).

  2. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure of the cake as its proteins form gluten when mixed.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to add richness and a tender crumb.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity, which reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce gas that lifts the batter.

The step that matters

Mix with a spoon until just combined. Overmixing develops too much gluten in the flour, which makes the cake tough and dense. Stop mixing as soon as the flour is moistened.

“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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