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Dessert

National Cake

A three-part cake made with white, blue, and red sections, each prepared with sugar, butter, milk, eggs, flour, and flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Goff, May Perrin, [from old catalog] ed · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

National Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batters

  1. Cream together one cup white sugar and one-half cup butter.

  2. Add one-half cup sweet milk, the beaten whites of four eggs, one-half cup corn starch, one cup flour into which has been mixed one teaspoonful cream tartar and one-half teaspoonful soda.

  3. Flavor with lemon extract.

  4. Cream together one cup blue sugar-sand and one-half cup butter.

  5. Add one-half cup sweet milk, the beaten whites of four eggs, and two cups flour, in which mix one teaspoonful cream tartar and one-half teaspoonful soda.

  6. Cream together one cup red sugar and half cup butter.

  7. Add one-half cup sweet milk, the beaten whites of four eggs and two cups flour, in which mix one teaspoonful of cream tartar and one-half teaspoonful soda.

Layer and bake

  1. Place in a cake pan, first the red part.

  2. Add the white part.

  3. Add the blue part.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

884Calories
28 gProtein
31 gFat
121 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49

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

By Goff, May Perrin, [from old catalog] ed. 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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Eggs
Whipped whites add lightness and structure to the batter.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Cream tartar
Reacts with soda to help the cake rise and keeps the crumb tender.
Soda
Reacts with cream of tartar to release gas, helping the batter rise.
Flour
Provides the main structure of each layer as it sets in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps it brown and stay moist.

The step that matters

Layer and bake. Each colored batter is a separate layer, so the batters must be poured in the stated order. Mixing them together would blur the colors. Because the batters rise through the reaction of cream of tartar and soda, they should be baked promptly once 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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