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 ↓
White Mountain Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Make the cake
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add sweet milk, baking powder, and flour gradually.
Beat egg whites until very light.
Fold beaten egg whites into the batter just before adding the flour.
Divide the batter into four deep jelly pans.
Bake until a toothpick comes out clean and let cool completely.
Ice and assemble
For icing, beat egg whites and gradually add powdered sugar until smooth.
Grate coconut and spread a layer of icing and coconut between the cakes.
Spread icing around the sides and on top of the cake, then sprinkle with coconut.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,648 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,467 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 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
- Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
- Egg whites
- Beaten to foam, they lighten the batter and add structure as the cake sets.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake's risen crumb together as it bakes.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and become light.
- White sugar
- Creams with butter for airiness and adds sweetness and tender texture.
The step that matters
Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when beaten to a light foam; overmixing or stirring them in deflates the batter, so the cake rises less and turns dense. Fold gently and quickly, just before adding the flour.
Swap the coconut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, milk, flour, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits about as well
- Coconutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, flour, egg. 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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