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Dessert

Master Layer Cake

A simple butter, flour, sugar, and egg cake baked in two 8‑inch pans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Master Layer Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar thoroughly.

  2. Add the vanilla and eggs, and beat until fluffy.

  3. Add the sifted dry ingredients alternately with the milk, mixing thoroughly after each addition.

Bake

  1. Bake in two greased 8‑inch layer cake pans at 350°F (175°C) for 25‑30 minutes.

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.

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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 sugar to trap air and add richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, fluffy texture when creamed.
Eggs
Add structure, moisture and richness, and help bind the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter so it spreads evenly in the pans.

The step that matters

Adding the dry ingredients alternately with the milk. Mixing too vigorously after adding flour can overdevelop gluten and make the cake tough. Adding flour and milk in portions, and mixing only until combined, keeps the crumb tender.

Swap the vanilla

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, sugar, egg, milk):

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, sugar, egg, milk. 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.

More layer cake recipes

Chocolate 44White 23Fruit 18Orange 16Fig 12Coconut 11 See all 133 →

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