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Rye Drop Cakes

A fried batter cake made from rye meal, flour, molasses, eggs, and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Rye Drop Cakes

Why it works: Rye and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,320 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Rye Drop Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix rye meal, flour, molasses, eggs, baking soda, and salt.

  2. Add sweet milk until the mixture is stiff enough to drop from a spoon.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard in a kettle until hot.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into the hot lard.

  3. Shake the kettle a few times while cooking until golden brown.

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. Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Rye + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together918 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Rye meal
Provides the main body and the dense, earthy flavour of the cakes.
All-purpose flour
Adds gluten-forming structure so the cakes hold together when fried.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and a dark colour that helps the cakes brown.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during frying.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to lighten the batter and help it rise.

The step that matters

Shake the kettle while frying. Moving the lard keeps the cakes from sticking and helps them cook evenly, so they turn golden brown on all sides rather than burning in one spot.

“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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