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 ↓
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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the sour cream and milk, mixing well.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and nutmeg.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.
Bake
Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour 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
- Sugar
- Sweetens the batter and, creamed with butter, helps trap air for a light crumb.
- Sour cream
- Adds moisture and tang, and its acidity reacts with baking soda to help the cake rise.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and tenderness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for lift.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that sets the cake as the batter bakes.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidity of the sour cream to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
The step that matters
Stirring in the dry ingredients. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form, so stirring only until just combined keeps the cake tender rather than tough and dense.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream, milk, butter, flour):
- Cinnamonfits about as well
- Nutmegthe original
- Jalapenofits less well
- Capersfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, milk, butter, 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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