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Dessert

One, Two, Three, Four Cake

A light, fluffy cake made with butter, sugar, flour, four eggs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

One, Two, Three, Four Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt into the flour.

Make the batter

  1. In another bowl, cream the butter and gradually beat in half of the sugar.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks until frothy and then beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  3. Combine the egg yolks with the butter and sugar mixture, then add the remaining sugar.

  4. Gradually add the flour mixture to the egg and butter mixture, stirring until just combined.

  5. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Fill small buttered cake tins a little more than half full.

  2. Bake for about 15 minutes or 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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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 add richness and tenderness.
Eggs
Whites whipped to stiff peaks give lift and structure; yolks add richness and binding.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the cake once its proteins set in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender crumb when creamed with butter.
Cream of tartar
Stabilises the whipped egg whites so they hold their peaks.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic components to help the cake rise.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whipped whites hold the air that lifts the cake. Stirring them vigorously knocks out air and makes the cake dense, so fold gently until just 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.

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