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Baking

White Mountain Cake

A sweet cake made with flour, sugar, butter, eggs, sweet milk, baking soda, cream of tartar, and bitter almond extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

White Mountain 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, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in the sweet milk and add to the mixture.

  5. Sift the flour with the cream of tartar and gradually add to the wet ingredients.

  6. Mix until just combined, then add bitter almond extract to taste.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into greased loaf or jelly tins.

  2. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that sets the crumb as the cake bakes.
Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich texture.
White sugar
Creamed with butter to aerate the batter and adds sweetness and browning.
Eggs
Add structure, richness and moisture, and help bind the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter, stabilizing the leavening reaction and helping the cake rise.

The step that matters

Mixing in the flour and milk. Once flour is added, overmixing develops gluten and can make the cake tough and dense. Mix only until the flour is just combined, and add the leavening milk gently so the rise is not lost.

“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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