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Dessert

Yorkshire Cake

A sweet cake made with flour, butter, egg, milk, ground rice, sugar, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Yorkshire Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.

  2. Mix the flour, ground rice, and baking powder.

  3. Add the dry mixture to the butter and sugar.

  4. Beat the egg and add it to the mixture along with a little milk.

  5. Divide the mixture into equal parts and spread each on a well-buttered dessert plate.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 10 to 15 minutes.

  2. Once baked, slip the cakes off the plates, spread jam on one, and place the other on top, pressing gently.

  3. Sprinkle with castor sugar. Optionally, substitute lemon cheese for jam.

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

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

  2. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and adds richness and a tender crumb.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together.
Ground rice
Gives the cakes a slightly crumbly, short texture.
Egg
Binds the mixture and adds structure and richness.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the cakes rise and stay light.

The step that matters

Baking the thin layers. The batter is spread very thinly, so it bakes quickly and can dry out or over-brown. Watch closely and remove them once they are just set and lightly golden.

“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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