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Dessert

Irish Tea Cake

A sweet cake made with flour, sugar, butter, milk, eggs, baking soda, cream of tartar, vanilla or almond extract, and a pinch of salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Irish Tea Cake

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. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

Make the batter

  1. Dissolve the baking soda in 1 tablespoon of milk.

  2. Beat the egg yolks with the remaining milk.

  3. Gradually add the yolk mixture to the butter and sugar, sifting in the flour at the same time.

  4. Add the dissolved baking soda, extract, and beaten egg whites.

  5. Finally, fold in the cream of tartar.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a buttered tin and bake for 1 hour and 15 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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 starch and gluten network that sets the cake's structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a soft, tender crumb when creamed with butter.
Eggs
Add structure, moisture and richness, and help bind the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with acid in the batter to release gas that makes the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that activates the baking soda and helps stabilise the rise.

The step that matters

Folding in the cream of tartar. Baking soda and cream of tartar react to form gas bubbles that lift the cake. Folding gently keeps those bubbles in the batter, and overmixing or letting the batter stand loses much of the rise.

“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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