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Sour Cream Cake

A sweet loaf cake made with sugar, butter, egg, sour milk, sour cream, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Sour Cream Cake

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 ↓

Sour Cream 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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the well-beaten egg and re-cream the mixture.

  3. Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together three times.

  4. Add two tablespoons of the sifted dry ingredients to the creamed mixture and cream again.

  5. Alternately add the remaining dry ingredients and sour milk to the creamed mixture.

  6. Stir in the extract.

  7. Beat the dough mixture vigorously for two minutes before placing it in a loaf pan.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and sour cream to add rising and a tender crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and tenderness.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a fine, tender texture when creamed with butter.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tang.

The step that matters

Beating the batter for two minutes. Vigorous beating after the flour is added develops gluten, which gives structure but can make the cake tough if overdone. Beating briefly and deliberately, then baking promptly, keeps the crumb tender while still letting the cake rise well.

“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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