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Dessert

Sour Cream Cake

A moist cake made with sour cream, eggs, sugar, flour, and leavening, topped with a lemon‑chocolate icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Sour Cream Cake

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Sour Cream Cake

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and eggs until light and fluffy.

  3. Mix in the sour cream until well combined.

  4. In another bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and mace.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.

Bake and ice

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. For the icing, beat the reserved egg white until stiff peaks form.

  3. Squeeze the juice of half a lemon into the egg white and gradually add confectioner's sugar until the desired consistency is reached.

  4. Fold in the melted chocolate gently until combined.

  5. Spread the icing over the cooled cake.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  2. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and whip the egg white to make a stable icing.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and tenderness to the crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together.
Baking powder
Releases gas to lift the batter as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps give it a light, fluffy texture when creamed.
Melted chocolate
Adds flavor and color to the icing.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, which makes the cake tough and dense. Stir only until no dry flour streaks remain.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, cream, flour, lemon, chocolate):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Peppermintfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, cream, flour, lemon, chocolate. 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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