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Dessert

Bhabford Cup Cake

A moist cake made with flour, baking soda, butter or lard, eggs, sugar, molasses, sour milk, spices, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Bhabford Cup 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.

Prepare the dough

  1. Sift the baking soda into the flour.

  2. Work the butter or lard into the flour until well combined.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs with the sugar, molasses, and sour milk.

  4. Add spices to taste and mix well.

  5. Combine the wet and dry ingredients and mix until smooth.

Bake

  1. Grease a tin pan and pour in the batter.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick comes out clean.

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

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

  2. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure as the bulk of the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk and molasses to produce gas that lets the cake rise.
Butter or lard
Coats flour particles and adds tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure, moisture, and lift as they set in the oven.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture, with a deep flavor.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tang.

The step that matters

Combine the wet and dry ingredients and mix until smooth. Baking soda starts reacting as soon as it meets the acidic sour milk, so the batter should go into the pan and the oven without long delay. Mixing only until smooth keeps the crumb tender, since overworking flour develops gluten and makes it tough.

“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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