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 ↓
Layer 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 the batter
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a mixing bowl, beat together the sugar and butter until creamy.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Stir in the milk and mix until combined.
Gradually add flour until you achieve a stiff batter.
Add flavoring to taste.
Bake and serve
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.
Let cool and fill with your choice of filling.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender, lightly browned crumb.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a tender texture, and helps trap air when creamed.
- Eggs
- Add structure as they set and help bind the batter together.
- Milk
- Provides moisture and liquid that hydrates the flour and dissolves sugar.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
The step that matters
Gradually add flour until you achieve a stiff batter. Adding flour too quickly can leave lumps, and overmixing once flour is in develops gluten, which toughens the crumb. Stop mixing as soon as the batter is just combined and stiff.
“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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