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Dessert

Snow-mountain Cake

A coconut cake made with butter, sugar, milk, baking soda, eggs, flour, cream of tartar, and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Snow-mountain Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter until very light.

  2. Slowly add the powdered sugar while stirring continuously.

  3. Mix in the milk with dissolved baking soda until well combined.

  4. Add the egg yolks and mix thoroughly.

  5. Rub the cream of tartar into the flour.

  6. Stir in the butter mixture, alternating with the beaten egg whites.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake in three pans or six round jelly plates.

  2. Use the beaten egg whites for icing.

  3. Mix in the powdered sugar.

  4. Layer chocolate icing between three of the cakes.

  5. Top each layer with grated coconut.

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. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

  5. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake's shape as it sets.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Egg whites
Whipped air bubbles give the cake lift and a lighter texture.
Egg yolks
Add richness, color, and help bind the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidic partner to baking soda and helps stabilize the beaten egg whites.

The step that matters

Stir in the butter mixture, alternating with the beaten egg whites.. Beaten egg whites hold the air that lifts the cake. Stirring them in vigorously deflates that foam, leaving a denser cake. Combine gently, alternating additions, so the batter keeps its lift.

Swap the coconut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, milk, egg, flour, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutthe original
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, egg, flour, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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