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Dessert

Rye Drop Cakes

A simple rye cake made with milk, eggs, butter, cream of tartar, baking soda, sugar, and rye meal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Rye Drop Cakes

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Rye Drop Cakes

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.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the milk, beaten eggs, butter, cream of tartar, baking soda, and sugar.

  2. Gradually add rye meal until the mixture forms a thick batter.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto a baking sheet.

  2. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Milk + ryetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together918 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 add structure and richness to the cakes as they set.
Rye meal
Forms the body of the batter, giving the cakes their hearty flavor and texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to release gas, helping the cakes rise.
Cream of tartar
Provides acidity that activates the baking soda, producing lift and a tender crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and helps the cakes brown.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and aids browning of the cakes' surface in the oven.

The step that matters

Gradually add rye meal until the mixture forms a thick batter. Rye meal absorbs liquid at different rates depending on its grind. Adding it gradually lets you stop at a thick, spoonable batter; too much makes the cakes dense, while too little makes them spread and stay flat.

“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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