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Dessert

Cup Cakes

A sweet baked dessert made with sugar, butter, sour milk, baking soda, eggs, spices, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cup Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the sour milk and baking soda, mixing well.

  3. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

  4. Stir in the salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

  5. Gradually add the flour, mixing until just combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into cupcake liners and bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps create a light, tender crumb when creamed with butter.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness, and traps air when creamed with sugar.
Sour milk
Provides moisture and acidity that reacts with baking soda to help the cupcakes rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity of the sour milk to produce gas that leavens the batter.
Eggs
Add structure and moisture, and help bind the batter as it sets in the oven.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cupcakes as its proteins set during baking.

The step that matters

Gradually add the flour, mixing until just combined. Once flour is added, gluten develops with mixing. Stopping as soon as the flour disappears keeps the cupcakes tender rather than tough and dense.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, egg, cinnamon, nutmeg, flour):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, egg, cinnamon, 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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