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Dessert

Tapioca Cake

A layered cake made with sugar, butter, milk, flour, corn starch, egg whites, baking powder, and tapioca.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Chippewa Falls, Wis. Episcopal church. Ladies aid society. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Tapioca Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine two cupfuls of sugar, two-thirds cupful of butter, one cupful of sweet milk, two cupfuls of flour, one cupful of corn starch, the whites of six eggs, and one and one-half teaspoonfuls of baking powder; bake in layers.

Prepare the tapioca

  1. Soak five tablespoonfuls of tapioca in water until covered, steam in the same water, adding more water as required.

Fill the layers

  1. Fill the baked layers with a mixture of sugar and vanilla, spread between layers.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

833Calories
27 gProtein
26 gFat
120 gCarbs

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
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Waternot 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.

By Chippewa Falls, Wis. Episcopal church. Ladies aid society. [from old catalog]. 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

Butter and flour 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

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake layers together as they set.
Eggs
Add structure and help the batter set and bind during baking.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the layers rise.
Corn starch
Softens the crumb and makes the cake more tender than flour alone.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the cake moist and browned.

“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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