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Dessert

Economy Bread Cakes

A simple cake made from stale bread, flour, milk, baking soda, and cream of tartar, baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Economy Bread Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Pour sufficient boiling water over stale bread to soften it.

  2. Mash the softened bread through a colander.

  3. Add an equal amount of wheat flour to the bread.

  4. Add enough milk to make a thick batter.

  5. Stir in 1 teaspoon of baking soda and 2 teaspoons of cream of tartar.

Bake

  1. Bake immediately in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

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. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Bread + wheattop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together209 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 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 milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Stale bread
Forms the body of the cakes and absorbs liquid to create a soft, moist crumb.
Wheat flour
Adds structure so the batter holds its shape while baking.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the mixture into a thick, spreadable batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with cream of tartar to release gas, helping the cakes rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda to produce lift.

The step that matters

Bake immediately in a 400°F (200°C) oven.. Baking soda and cream of tartar start releasing gas as soon as they are mixed with liquid. Delaying the bake lets that gas escape, so the cakes may rise less.

“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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