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Dessert

Prize White Cup Cake

A light, sweet cake made with butter, flour, sugar, sour milk, baking soda, eggs, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Prize White Cup Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks until light, then add the sugar and mix well.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  4. Add the beaten egg whites to the yolk mixture, alternating with the flour.

  5. In a small bowl, combine the sour milk and baking soda, then add to the mixture.

  6. Mix everything slowly until just combined.

  7. Use flavoring to taste.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 30-40 minutes, checking with a straw or knife for doneness.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's rise and shape.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and stay moist.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
Eggs
Add structure and lift through the whipped whites, and richness from the yolks.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whipped whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Mixing too vigorously deflates them, leaving a dense, flat cake, so combine gently and only until just mixed.

“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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