Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓
Geneeal Directions
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Ensure ingredients are of best quality: sweet butter, fresh eggs, good flour.
Put butter in an earthen dish and add sugar; beat to a cream.
Add yolks of eggs, then milk, then beaten whites of eggs and flour.
Add spices, liquors, and fruit with the flour.
Preheat oven: small cakes hot, larger cakes moderate.
Bake
Test doneness by piercing with a broom straw or knitting needle; if straw comes out clean, cake is done.
To prevent browning too soon, place a pasteboard with holes on top of the pan.
Do not use newspaper.
If necessary to turn or move cake, do it gently.
If oven too hot, lift one stove lid a little for a short time.
Do not remove cake until it is cold.
Make the icing and finish
Combine one pound white sugar (crushed or crystallized) with four very large spoonfuls of water in a large kitchen spoon.
Boil until water evaporates.
Pour syrup slowly over the whites of 92 cakes.
Beat four eggs to a stiff froth.
Flavor with lemon or almond extract.
Add a drop of blueing agent.
Add a little pulverized citric acid if you want icing to dry quickly.
If cake is well dredged after baking, wipe before icing to prevent run.
Set iced cake in cool dry place to dry.
Beat whites of two eggs to a stiff froth.
Add gradually half a pound best pulverized sugar.
Beat well for at least half an hour.
Flavor with lemon juice; optionally add tartaric acid.
To color pink, use strawberry, currant, or cranberry; to color yellow, use grated peel of orange or lemon moistened with juice and strained through cloth.
Combine one teacup grated chocolate, two cups white sugar, half cup sweet milk.
Boil until it ropes.
Beat until cool.
Fold in whipped whites of four eggs.
Dissolve one heaping teaspoonful corn starch in just enough cold water.
Add a little hot water and cook in a basin set in hot water until very thick.
Stir in two and two-thirds cups pulverized sugar while starch is hot.
Flavor to taste.
Spread on cake while hot.
Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)
Counts 6 of 8 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.
What these numbers assume: 6 portions
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Flour | 1 cup (125g) all-purpose | 455 |
| Chocolate | 1 oz (28g) semisweet | 155 |
| Milk | 1 cup (244ml) whole | 149 |
| Egg | 1 large egg (50g) | 78 |
| Sugar | 1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated | 49 |
| Lemon | juice of 1 lemon (48ml) | 12 |
| Water | not in our table | 0 |
| Cake | not in our table | 0 |
One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.
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.
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Milk + corntop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
-
Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,404 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
-
Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,927 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,128 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
-
Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Provide structure and lift when beaten to a stiff froth and folded into the batter.
- Butter (in the method)
- Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich texture.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and, when boiled into syrup, helps form the icing.
- Flour (in the method)
- Forms the cake's main structure once it is set by the oven's heat.
- Grated chocolate
- Adds chocolate flavor and color to the boiled icing.
- Corn starch
- Thickens the icing so it becomes very thick and spreadable.
The step that matters
Beat the whites to a stiff froth and fold them in gently. Beaten egg whites trap air that leavens the batter. Overbeating makes them dry and grainy, and heavy folding deflates them, leaving a dense cake.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk, egg, chocolate, corn):
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, egg, chocolate, corn. 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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