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Dessert

Sunshine Cake

A light, airy cake made with egg whites, yolks, sugar, vanilla, flour, and cream of tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Sunshine Cake

Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Sunshine Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then add the cream of tartar and continue beating.

  2. Gradually add the sugar while beating until well combined.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks and vanilla extract, mixing until smooth.

  4. Fold in the sifted flour gently until just combined.

Bake and cool

  1. Pour the batter into an ungreased cake pan or grease only the bottom.

  2. Bake for about 30 minutes, then let cool before removing from the pan.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Vanilla + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

Egg whites
Whipped into foam to give the cake its light, airy structure.
Egg yolks
Add richness and tenderness while helping the batter stay smooth.
Cream of tartar
Stabilises the whipped egg whites so the foam holds its volume.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps stabilise the whipped egg white foam.
Flour
Provides the light structure that sets as the cake bakes.

The step that matters

Folding in the flour. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the egg white foam. Stirring vigorously would deflate the batter, leaving a denser, shorter cake.

Swap the vanilla

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

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

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

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