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Dessert

Lady Cake

A light cake made with sugar, butter, flour, egg whites, and cream of tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Lady Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a warm 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 and butter for 10 minutes until smooth.

  2. Divide the egg whites into three parts.

  3. Add one-third of the egg whites and mix for 3 minutes.

  4. Add half of the remaining egg whites and mix as before.

  5. Add the last of the egg whites and mix again.

  6. Gently fold in the flour and cream of tartar.

Bake and ice

  1. Pour the batter into a well-greased dripping pan lined with paper.

  2. Bake in a warm oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 1 hour.

  3. If the batter is thicker than 1½ inches, it will require more baking time.

  4. After baking, remove the paper and ice the bottom, which will then be the top.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps give the cake a fine, tender crumb.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Flour
Provides structure as its proteins and starches set during baking.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam that traps air, lifting the cake and setting its structure.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the flour and cream of tartar. Once flour is added, overmixing develops gluten and deflates the air trapped in the egg whites, which makes the cake dense and tough. Folding gently keeps the batter light.

“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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