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Dessert

Suet Cake

A sweet cake made with milk, flour, molasses, sugar, suet, egg, baking soda, cream of tartar, vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Suet Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg, then add the molasses and sugar, mixing well.

  2. Combine the baking soda with the milk.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix the flour and cream of tartar.

  4. Add the milk mixture and the flour mixture to the egg mixture, then fold in the suet and vinegar last.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into shallow pans and bake for 30 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Flour
Provides starch and gluten that give the cake its structure.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps set the crumb as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with acids in the batter to release gas, so the cake rises.
Cream of tartar
An acid that works with the baking soda to help the cake rise.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and dark color with a rich flavor.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the crumb tender and moist.

The step that matters

Fold in the suet and vinegar last. Mix only until the batter is combined. Overmixing develops gluten, making the cake tough, and knocks out the gas that the baking soda and cream of tartar are producing.

“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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