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 ↓
Madeira 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, rub together butter and sugar until creamy.
Make the batter
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Dissolve the baking soda in the milk and add it to the mixture.
Sift the cream of tartar through the flour and mix it in.
Flavor the batter with lemon and vanilla extracts.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan and bake for about 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
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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Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,187 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together35,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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
- Eggs
- Set the structure and add richness and moisture to the crumb.
- Flour
- Forms the gluten network that gives the cake its main structure.
- Butter
- Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps trap air when creamed with butter.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
- Cream of tartar
- Provides the acid that activates the baking soda and stabilizes the batter.
The step that matters
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each. Adding eggs gradually lets each one emulsify fully into the butter and sugar. Adding them all at once can cause the batter to curdle or separate, which hurts the final texture.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, flour, cream, butter, sugar, vanilla):
- Figfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Raisinfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, flour, cream, butter, sugar, 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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