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Dessert

How to Bake a Daffodil Cake

A yellow and white cake with a creamy glaze, made from flour, sugar, egg whites, yolks, vanilla, almond flavoring, and yellow food coloring.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

How to Bake a Daffodil Cake

Oven375°F
Time40 minutes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batters

  1. Preheat oven to 375°F.

  2. Whisk together flour and sugar.

  3. Beat egg whites, cream of tartar and salt until foamy.

  4. Add 3/4 cup sugar, a bit at a time, and beat until stiff peaks form.

  5. Beat egg yolks until thick and lemon colored in another mixing bowl.

  6. Gently fold into egg white mixture.

  7. Sprinkle flour mixture, about a 1/4 cup at a time, over egg white mixture, and fold in gently until all the flour mixture is folded into the egg whites.

  8. Pour half of the egg white mixture into another mixing bowl.

  9. Gently fold egg yolks into the egg white mixture.

Bake and cool

  1. Spoon yellow and white batters alternately into a 10 x 4-inch tube pan.

  2. Gently cut through the batter to make a swirled effect.

  3. Bake 40 minutes or until cake tests done.

  4. Invert the pan and cool.

Glaze and serve

  1. Glaze with Creamy Glaze.

  2. Mix together the powdered sugar, butter, almond flavoring and hot water until smooth.

  3. Drizzle glaze over cool cake. Serve.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

754Calories
20 gProtein
24 gFat
109 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 9 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Vanilla1 tsp extract (4ml)12
Almond1 almond (1.2g)7
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Cakenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

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. Vanilla + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cream + buttertop 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

Cake flour
Provides the starch structure that holds the light, airy crumb together.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air and give the cake its lift and light texture.
Egg yolks
Add richness, tenderness and the yellow color of the batter.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps stabilize the whipped egg whites.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the egg whites, helping them whip to a stable, stiff foam.
Powdered sugar
Forms the smooth, sweet base of the glaze.

The step that matters

Folding the flour and yolks into the whites. Whipped egg whites hold air that gives the cake its rise. Stirring or deflating them too hard knocks out that air, so fold gently with a wide motion until just combined.

Swap the vanilla

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, egg, cream, almond, butter):

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits less well
  4. Figfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, egg, cream, almond, butter. 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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