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Dessert

Bradford Cup Cake

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

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 ↓

Bradford 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

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

  2. Sift the baking soda into the flour.

  3. In a large bowl, work the butter or lard into the flour mixture.

Make the batter

  1. In another bowl, beat the eggs with the sugar, molasses, and sour milk.

  2. Combine the wet and dry ingredients, adding spices to taste.

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

Bake

  1. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center 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 that holds the cake together as it sets.
Butter or lard
Works into the flour to add fat, giving a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and help bind the batter as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a dark color and deep flavor to the cake.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and its liquid moistens the batter.

The step that matters

Combine the wet and dry ingredients, then bake promptly. Baking soda begins reacting as soon as it meets the acidic sour milk and molasses, releasing gas that lifts the batter. Delaying the pan and oven lets some of that lift escape, so the cake may rise less and turn out denser.

“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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