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Dessert

White Mountain Cake

A lemon and mace cake with rose water, made with butter, sugar, eggs, milk, flour, corn starch, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

White Mountain Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth.

  2. Add the lemon juice, lemon rind, mace, and beaten egg yolks; mix well.

  3. Whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then fold in one-third at a time.

  4. Stir in the milk and rose water gradually.

  5. Sift together the flour, corn starch, and baking powder, then fold into the mixture until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into well-buttered jelly-cake pans to a depth of half an inch.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until light brown.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Lemon + rosetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Mace + rosetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together498 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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 whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the batter and give the cake its rise and airy crumb.
Egg yolks
Add richness, fat and emulsifying power that help bind the batter and tenderize the crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add fat for a tender, rich texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, creamed base when beaten with butter.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites whipped to stiff peaks hold the air that lightens the batter. Adding them one-third at a time and folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps that air from collapsing so the cake rises well.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, lemon, egg, milk, rose, 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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