Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Angel 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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Beat the egg whites until very light.
Sift the powdered sugar, flour, and cream of tartar together twice through a fine sieve.
Gently fold the sifted mixture into the beaten egg whites without overmixing.
Do not grease the pan; bake in a pan with a center piece.
Bake and serve
Once baked, turn the pan upside down and let the cake cool.
Run a thin knife around the edges to release the cake.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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 + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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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 + creamtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,481 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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 whites
- Whipped into foam that traps air, giving the cake its light, airy structure.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the cake and adds fine texture when sifted with the flour.
- Flour
- Provides a light structure that holds the cake's foam together as it sets.
- Cream of tartar
- Stabilizes the whipped egg whites so the foam holds its volume longer.
The step that matters
Gently fold the sifted mixture into the beaten egg whites without overmixing.. Overmixing deflates the air bubbles in the beaten egg whites, so the cake rises less and turns out 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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