Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
Fairy Loaf Cake
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 the batter
Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
Add cream of tartar and baking soda to the flour and sift three times.
Cream the butter and sugar together.
Beat the egg yolks until stiff and stir them into the butter mixture.
Whip the egg whites to a foam and add them along with the milk.
Finally, add the flour mixture and any desired flavoring, beating very hard.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan and bake for 30 to 40 minutes.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 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).
Flour and butter 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
- Eggs
- Whipped whites trap air for lift, and yolks enrich the crumb and add structure.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that sets the crumb as the cake bakes.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps tenderize the crumb when creamed with butter.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter so baking soda reacts and helps the cake rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the batter to release gas, helping the cake rise.
The step that matters
Beating the egg whites to a foam. Whites must be whipped to a stable foam so they hold air through mixing and baking. Under-whipped or deflated whites lead to a dense loaf, while the final hard beating should be done carefully to keep the batter from losing that air.
“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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