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Dessert

Snow Cake, No. 3

A light, sweet cake made with butter, sugar, milk, cornstarch, flour, baking powder, egg whites, and flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Snow Cake, No. 3

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix cornstarch, flour, and baking powder together.

Make the batter

  1. Add the butter and sugar alternately with the milk, mixing well.

  2. Fold in the egg whites gently.

  3. Add flavoring to taste and mix until combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake until golden.

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake's shape as it bakes.
Cornstarch
Softens the crumb, giving the cake a light, tender texture compared with flour alone.
Egg whites
Trap air when folded in, helping the cake rise and giving it a light, airy structure.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and contributes richness and flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep the crumb soft and moist, while aiding browning.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, lifting the batter so the cake rises and becomes fluffy.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Egg whites hold air bubbles that make the cake rise. Stirring vigorously deflates them, which leads to a dense, flat cake. Use a light folding motion until just combined.

“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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