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Dessert

Sunshine Cake

A light orange cake made with egg whites, yolks, sugar, orange rind, juice, flour, and cream of tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Sunshine Cake

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Sunshine Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

Make the batter

  1. Sift the granulated sugar three times and gradually add it to the egg whites.

  2. Add the beaten egg yolks, grated orange rind, and orange juice to the mixture.

  3. Combine the cream of tartar with the flour and sift three times; then add to the egg mixture.

Bake

  1. Bake in an ungreased 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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

  5. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Beaten until stiff, they trap air and give the cake its light, airy structure.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and, added gradually, helps stabilize the beaten egg white foam.
Egg yolks
Add richness and moisture, and help give the crumb a tender texture.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten that set the cake's structure as it bakes.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the egg whites, helping them whip to a more stable foam.

The step that matters

Gradually adding the sugar to the egg whites. Adding sugar too quickly or before the whites are stiff can collapse the foam. Adding it gradually, after the whites have formed soft peaks, helps keep the foam stable so the cake rises well.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

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