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Dessert

Silver Cake

A baked almond-flavored cake made with sugar, butter, corn starch, milk, egg whites, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Silver 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.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Dissolve the corn starch in the milk and mix it with the creamed butter and sugar.

  3. Add the almond flavoring and the beaten egg whites, mixing well.

  4. Sift the cream of tartar and baking soda into the flour, then gradually add to the mixture.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into a deep pan and bake for about 30 minutes.

  2. Frost with white frosting once cooled.

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. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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. Corn + almondtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together485 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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 trap air that lifts and lightens the cake's crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps hold air when creamed with butter.
Corn starch
Softens the crumb, giving a fine, delicate texture compared with flour alone.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Cream of tartar
Stabilizes the whipped egg whites, helping them hold their volume.

The step that matters

Folding in the stiff egg whites. Whipped egg whites hold the cake's lift. Mixing them in too vigorously deflates the foam, leaving a dense, flat cake, so combine them gently and evenly.

“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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