Skip to main content
Dessert

White Cake

A light, fluffy white cake flavored with bitter almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
White Cake

Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

White Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the egg yolks and beat until very light.

  3. Stir in the milk with dissolved baking soda.

  4. Gradually add the flour sifted with cream of tartar and the egg whites alternately.

  5. Add bitter almonds to taste.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into paper-lined pans and bake until golden.

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and tenderness, and holds air when beaten with sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and creams with butter to trap air for a light crumb.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter; whites add lift and structure when whisked.
Flour
Forms the cake's main structure as its proteins set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to release gas that makes the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acid that stabilizes the whisked egg whites and helps the batter rise evenly.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and egg whites alternately. Mixing too hard after the flour goes in develops gluten and deflates the whisked whites, leaving a dense, tough cake. Add them gently in turns and stop once combined.

“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

Almond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipesAlmond WafersAlmond Wafers22 recipesCoconut Almond CakeCoconut Almond Cake17 recipes