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Dessert

Sunshine Cake

A light lemon cake made with powdered sugar, egg whites, yolks, flour, cream of tartar, and lemon extract.

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 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff and dry.

  2. Gradually add the powdered sugar while continuing to beat.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks and lemon extract, mixing well.

  4. Gently cut and fold in the flour and cream of tartar.

Bake

  1. Bake for 50 minutes in a 350°F (175°C) oven in an angel cake 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. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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
Whipped to stiff foam, they give the cake its airy, light structure.
Egg yolks
Add richness and tenderness and help bind the batter.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the cake and stabilizes the whipped whites as it is added gradually.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the risen cake together as it sets.
Cream of tartar
Stabilizes the whipped egg whites, helping them hold their volume.

The step that matters

Gently cut and fold in the flour and cream of tartar. Deflating the whipped egg whites by overmixing loses the air that makes the cake rise. Folding gently keeps the foam intact so the cake bakes up light.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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