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Dessert

Cornstarch Cakes

A cake made with butter, sweet milk, cornstarch, sugar, flour, egg whites, cream of tartar, baking soda, and flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Cornstarch Cakes

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.

Prepare

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the butter and sweet milk.

  3. Add the cornstarch, sugar, and flour, mixing well.

Make the batter

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  2. Gently fold the egg whites into the mixture.

  3. Add the cream of tartar, baking soda, and flavoring, mixing until combined.

  4. Pour the batter into gem tins or patty pans.

Bake

  1. Bake until golden brown.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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
Whites beaten to stiff peaks trap air, giving the cakes a light, open structure.
Cornstarch
Softens the crumb, giving the cakes a more tender texture than flour alone.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cakes together as they set.
Cream of tartar
Stabilizes the beaten egg whites so they hold their peaks longer.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic and leavening ingredients to help the cakes rise.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air trapped in the stiff egg whites. Stirring hard would deflate them, leaving the cakes dense instead of light.

“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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