Skip to main content
Dessert

Rye Drop Cakes

A quick rye cake made with sour buttermilk, eggs, baking soda, salt, and rye meal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Rye Drop Cakes

Why it works: Buttermilk and rye work together. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 65 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Rye Drop Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine sour buttermilk, eggs, baking soda, and salt.

  2. Add rye meal gradually until the batter is thick enough to spread but not run.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into muffin rings.

  2. Bake for twice the time of regular griddle cakes, or in cups for about 15 minutes.

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.

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.

  1. Buttermilk + ryetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together65 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Buttermilk + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,986 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Egg + ryetop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together484 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sour buttermilk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to lift the cakes and adds tang and moisture.
Eggs
They bind the batter and set during baking to give the cakes structure.
Baking soda
It reacts with the sour buttermilk's acid to produce gas that makes the cakes rise.
Rye meal
It forms the body of the batter and gives the cakes their nutty, earthy flavor.

The step that matters

Add the rye meal gradually. Rye meal absorbs liquid and thickens the batter as you add it. Adding too much makes the cakes dense and tough, while too little leaves a thin batter that spreads and runs. Stopping at a spreadable consistency gives a light, tender result.

“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

Buttermilk PieButtermilk Pie12 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes