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 ↓
White Moiixtaix Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Make the cake batter
Beat two cups powdered sugar and half cup butter into a cream.
Add half cup sweet milk, two and a half cups flour, and two and a half teaspoons baking powder.
Add the whites of eight eggs.
Bake in jelly tins and assemble with icing.
Make the icing
Boil half teacup water and three teacups sugar until thick.
Beat the whites of three eggs well and pour over the syrup; beat all together until cool.
Assemble and finish
Sprinkle each layer thickly with grated coconut and also upon the outside icing.
Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)
Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Flour | 1 cup (125g) all-purpose | 455 |
| Milk | 1 cup (244ml) whole | 149 |
| Butter | 1 tbsp (14g) | 102 |
| Egg | 1 large egg (50g) | 78 |
| Sugar | 1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated | 49 |
| Water | 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.
-
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
-
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 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
- Butter
- Creams with the sugar to give the cake tenderness and a rich flavor.
- Eggs
- Whites add structure and lift, helping the cake hold its rise and set.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the cake crumb as it bakes.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and turns light.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and, when boiled with water, forms the syrup that sets the icing.
The step that matters
Beat the whites into the hot syrup until cool. Pouring hot sugar syrup into beaten egg whites while beating cooks and stabilizes the foam, giving a thick, glossy icing instead of a runny or collapsed one. Beating must continue until the mixture cools so it holds its shape.
“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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