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Dessert

White Bride Cake

A cake made with butter, sugar, flour, and egg whites, baked in a moderate oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

White Bride Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Take one pound of butter, put it into a basin and beat it with your hand until it comes to a fine cream.

  2. Add one and one-quarter pounds of pulverized sugar, and beat together until it is fine and white.

  3. Add one pound of sifted flour, give it a stir.

  4. Add the whites of fourteen eggs.

  5. Continue to beat it and add another pound of flour and fourteen more whites; beat well. Mix all together.

Bake

  1. Paper your dish around the sides and bottom.

  2. Put the batter in your dish and bake in a moderate oven.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

606Calories
13 gProtein
13 gFat
108 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, 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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavour.
Sugar
Beaten with the butter to make a fine, white cream and add sweetness.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's shape as it sets in the oven.
Egg whites (in the method)
Add air and moisture, helping the batter rise and set into a light texture.

The step that matters

Beating the butter and sugar until fine and white. Beating softened butter with sugar traps air in the fat, and that trapped air expands in the oven to lighten the cake. Stopping early leaves a dense crumb.

“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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