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Dessert

Lady Cake

A sweet cake made with butter, sugar, egg whites, sweet cream, flour, baking powder, and almond extract, baked at 400°F.

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

Lady Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the sweet cream, then the flour, and finally the almond extract.

  3. Beat the egg whites until very stiff and fold them into the mixture.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven in two bread pans.

  2. If desired, ice the cake with plain boiled icing flavored with almond extract.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give a tender, rich crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps cream the butter to hold air.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff foam, they add structure and lift to the batter.
Flour
Forms the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cake rise and become light.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the crumb soft after baking.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites trap air only when beaten until very stiff. Folding gently keeps that air in the batter; stirring or deflating it leads to a dense, flat 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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