Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Golden Cream- 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.
Make the batter
Beat the yolks of 8 eggs until light and creamy.
Mix in 2 cups of sugar and a pinch of salt.
Sift 3 teaspoons of baking powder with enough flour to make a batter and fold into the mixture.
Bake and finish
Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden.
For the icing, beat the whites of 3 eggs and gradually add 1 pound of sugar until thick.
Spread the icing between the cake layers and sprinkle grated coconut on top.
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.
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + coconuttop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,315 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + coconuttop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,742 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 yolks
- Add richness and structure, and help the batter set as it bakes.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and turn light.
- Flour
- Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
- Egg whites
- Whipped with sugar to make a thick icing that holds its shape.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and, when whipped with egg whites, stabilises the icing.
The step that matters
Folding in the baking powder and flour. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the yolks, so the baking powder can lift the batter. Overmixing knocks out air and gluten develops, making the cake dense.
Swap the coconut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, flour):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Lemonfits better
- Coconutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour. 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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