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Dessert

National Cake

A layered cake with white, blue, and red batters baked together.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

National 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.

Prepare the batters

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together 1 cup white sugar and ½ cup butter.

  3. Add ½ cup sweet milk, the beaten egg whites, ½ cup corn starch, and 1 cup flour mixed with 1 teaspoon cream of tartar and ½ teaspoon baking soda.

  4. Flavor with lemon extract.

  5. For the blue part, cream together 1 cup blue sugar sand and ½ cup butter.

  6. Add ½ cup sweet milk, the beaten egg whites, and 2 cups flour mixed with 1 teaspoon cream of tartar and ½ teaspoon baking soda.

  7. For the red part, cream together 1 cup red sugar and ½ cup butter.

  8. Add ½ cup sweet milk, the beaten egg whites, and 2 cups flour mixed with 1 teaspoon cream of tartar and ½ teaspoon baking soda.

Layer and bake

  1. In a cake pan, layer the red, then the white, and finally the blue batter.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted 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. 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. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Egg whites
Add structure and lift as they set in the oven, helping the cake hold its shape.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Cream of tartar and baking soda
React together to produce gas that helps the batter rise.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps tenderize the crumb when creamed with butter.

The step that matters

Layering the red, white, and blue batters. Each batter is separate and thick, so layering them carefully in the pan keeps the colors distinct. Pouring or spreading them unevenly can blend the colors during baking.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, egg, corn, flour, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, egg, corn, flour, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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