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Dessert

White Mountain Cake

A light cake made with sugar, butter, lard, egg whites, milk, baking soda, cream of tartar, flour, vanilla, and optional mace or lemon essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 sugar, butter, lard, and baking soda for 5 minutes.

  2. Add half of the egg whites and mix for 2 minutes.

  3. Add the remaining egg whites and mix as before.

  4. Stir in the milk, then add the cream of tartar and flour, mixing gently.

Prepare the tins

  1. Grease loaf or round cake tins and line the bottoms with paper.

Finish and bake

  1. Sprinkle a little powdered sugar on top before baking if icing is not desired.

  2. Flavor with ½ teaspoon of mace or lemon essence.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 20 minutes.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Egg whites
Trap air and set into the cake's open, light structure as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the main structure that holds the cake together once set.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives a richer texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps give it a fine, tender crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
Milk
Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and keeps the crumb soft.

The step that matters

Stir in the milk, then add the cream of tartar and flour, mixing gently.. Flour forms gluten when it is stirred and moistened. Gentle mixing at this stage keeps the gluten limited, so the cake stays tender rather than tough, and it protects the air already beaten into the batter.

“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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