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 ↓
Golden 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
Sift the flour and baking soda together three times, using a scant measure for the soda.
Put the cream of tartar in the egg yolks and beat them until stiff.
Make the batter
Warm the sugar in the oven slightly, then cream it with the butter thoroughly, adding the lemon extract.
Add the beaten yolks to the mixture and beat well.
Mix in the milk and flour, beating hard for about two minutes.
Bake and serve
Bake in two layers in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 to 40 minutes.
For a loaf cake, use 2½ cups of flour and follow the same instructions.
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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Egg yolks
- Add richness, structure and golden color when beaten into the batter.
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar to trap air and give a tender, rich crumb.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake together once set.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that lifts the cake.
- Granulated sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps create a fine, tender crumb when creamed.
- Sweet milk
- Adds moisture and liquid that hydrates the flour and dissolves the sugar.
The step that matters
Beating after the flour and milk go in. Flour proteins form gluten when stirred vigorously, so prolonged hard beating can make the crumb tough. Beat for the stated two minutes and stop once the batter is smooth.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, butter, milk, flour, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, milk, flour, cream. 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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