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Dessert

White Mountain Cake

A butter and sugar cake topped with a stiffened red currant jelly and egg white frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

White Mountain Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the butter and sugar until light.

  2. Add the whole eggs one at a time, beating well between each addition, then add the egg yolks all at once and beat for a few minutes.

  3. Sift together the flour and baking powder, then add to the mixture along with the milk and vanilla extract, mixing into a light batter.

Bake and frost

  1. Pour the batter into a shallow pan and bake for 40 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

  2. Once the cake is cold, beat together the red currant jelly, egg whites, and sugar until stiff and light, then cover the cake with this mixture.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Vanilla + red curranttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Eggs
Provide structure as they set in the oven and add richness and lift to the batter.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Red currant jelly
Adds fruity sweetness and acidity to the frosting mixture.
Egg whites
Whipped with sugar to create a stiff, airy frosting that holds its shape.

The step that matters

Let the cake cool completely before frosting. A warm cake would melt the whipped egg white and jelly topping, causing it to weep and slide off instead of holding a stiff, airy layer.

Swap the red currant

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

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