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Rye Cakes

A simple rye cake made with rye flour, wheat flour, sour milk, baking soda, salt, and golden syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rye and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Rye Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Mix the rye and wheat flour together.

  2. Combine the baking soda with the sour milk and stir until bubbly.

Mix and bake

  1. Add the flours, salt, and golden syrup to the mixture.

  2. Beat the mixture until stiff.

  3. Pour into a buttered tin and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Smooth the top with a spoon dipped in milk before serving hot.

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. Rye + wheattop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Rye + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together918 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Rye flour
Adds earthy flavour and a tender, less elastic structure than wheat flour.
Wheat flour
Supplies gluten to give the cake more structure alongside the rye.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to produce gas, helping the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to release carbon dioxide for rising.
Golden syrup
Adds sweetness, moisture and a deeper colour through browning.

The step that matters

Combining baking soda with sour milk until bubbly. The soda and acid react immediately to release carbon dioxide gas. The batter should be mixed and baked promptly so the gas is trapped in the batter and lifts the cake rather than escaping.

“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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