Skip to main content
Dessert

A Favorite Soda Cake

A quick bread made with flour, butter, currants, ginger, nutmeg, eggs, milk, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Ginger and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,324 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

A Favorite Soda Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate 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).

  2. In a bowl, rub the butter into the flour.

  3. Add the currants, ground ginger, and grated nutmeg.

Mix and bake

  1. Mix in the beaten eggs and warm milk with dissolved baking soda.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased cake tin lined with paper.

  3. Bake for 2 hours.

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. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as the batter sets in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness by coating flour and carrying fat into the crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and moisture as they set.
Baking soda
Reacts with the warm milk to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and dissolves the baking soda so it can react evenly.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in the warm milk. Baking soda must be fully dissolved so it reacts evenly through the batter. Undissolved pockets can cause bitter spots and uneven rising, so stir it into the warm milk before adding it to the mix.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, ginger, nutmeg, egg, milk. 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.

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipes