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Dessert

Black and White Cake

A layered cake with white and black portions made from sugar, butter, milk, eggs, flour, corn starch, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Black and White 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 the white batter

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

  2. Cream together 1 cup sugar and ½ cup butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add ½ cup sweet milk and 3 egg whites, mixing well.

  4. Sift together 1 cup flour, ½ cup corn starch, and 1 teaspoon baking powder.

  5. Fold the sifted dry ingredients into the mixture.

Make the black batter

  1. For the black part, cream 1 cup brown sugar and ½ cup butter.

  2. Stir in ½ cup sour milk and 1 teaspoon baking soda.

  3. Add 1½ cups flour, ½ cup raisins, ½ cup nuts, 3 egg yolks, 1 teaspoon molasses, and spices.

  4. Mix the black mixture well.

Bake

  1. Layer the white and black mixtures in a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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 + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Raisin + nutstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  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

Eggs
Egg whites add structure and lift to the light white batter, while yolks enrich the dark batter.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Brown sugar
Adds moisture and a deeper, caramel-like sweetness to the dark batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to release gas, helping the dark batter rise.
Flour
Forms the cake's main structure once its proteins set during baking.
Molasses
Darkens the batter and adds moisture and a rich, slightly bitter flavour.

The step that matters

Layering the white and black batters. The two batters have different densities and rising power, so pouring them in carefully keeps the layers distinct and prevents the lighter white batter from mixing into the dark one.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, egg, flour, corn, raisin. 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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