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Dessert

Silver Cake

A light, airy cake made with egg whites, sugar, flour, butter, milk, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Silver 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 batter

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the butter and sugar together until creamy.

  3. Add the milk and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and cream of tartar.

  5. Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients.

  6. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  7. Dissolve the baking soda in a little boiling water and add it to the mixture.

  8. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter.

Bake and cool

  1. Pour the batter into a pan without greasing it.

  2. Bake for 40 minutes until golden brown.

  3. Invert the pan onto a table to cool.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air and give the cake its light, open structure.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds fat and tenderness to the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the butter cream to a smooth base.
Cream of tartar
Stabilizes the whipped egg whites and adds mild acidity to the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity in the batter to produce gas that helps it rise.

The step that matters

Fold the egg whites into the batter. Whipped egg whites hold the air that lifts the cake. Folding gently keeps that air in, while vigorous stirring would deflate the foam and leave a denser 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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