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Dessert

Vanity Cake

A light, fluffy cake made with butter, sugar, flour, corn starch, baking powder, sweet milk, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Vanity Cake

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 ↓

Vanity 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the egg whites and mix well.

  3. In another bowl, combine the flour, corn-starch, and baking powder.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, alternating with the sweet milk.

  5. Pour the batter into two greased cake pans.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

  2. Let the cakes cool, then frost between the layers and on top.

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

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

  2. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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

Eggs
Egg whites add structure and help the cake rise and set as it bakes.
Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich texture.
Flour
Flour forms the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the cake rise and become light.
Sugar
Sugar adds sweetness and helps the creamed mixture hold air for a fluffy crumb.
Corn-starch
Cornstarch softens the flour's protein, giving the cake a finer, more tender crumb.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients, alternating with the milk. Adding dry ingredients and liquid in alternating portions keeps the batter smooth and emulsified. Adding everything at once can overmix the flour, toughening the cake.

“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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