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Dessert

Marie Paidar

A simple layer cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, milk, flour, baking powder, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Paidar, Marie, Mrs., [from old catalog] comp · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 81,283 recipes mention both. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Marie Paidar

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream butter, add sugar gradually, then add the well-beaten yolks. Beat until extremely light.

  2. Sift baking powder into flour after measuring, add alternately with milk.

  3. Whip whites until stiff, add mixture and stir well.

Bake the layers

  1. Bake in two layers.

Mix the second batter

  1. Sift together one and one-half cups of flour, one cup of sugar, and two teaspoons of baking powder.

  2. Break two eggs in cup, fill with milk, add to above.

  3. Also add four tablespoons melted butter and teaspoon of vanilla. Stir hard for two minutes.

Bake the layers

  1. Bake in two layers.

By Paidar, Marie, Mrs., [from old catalog] comp. 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. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 124,287 recipes mention both: they likely 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

Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the cake a tender crumb and flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a soft, tender texture when creamed with butter.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and the whipped whites help lift the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the layers to rise in the oven.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Milk
Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and keeps the crumb soft.

The step that matters

Whip whites until stiff. Stiff egg whites trap air that expands in the oven and lightens the cake. Under-whipped whites give a dense layer, while over-whipped whites turn dry and grainy and collapse when folded in.

“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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