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Dessert

Carolina Cake

A sweet cake made with butter, sugar, flour, egg whites, sweet milk, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

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

Carolina 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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the butter and sugar until smooth.

  2. Add the flour and egg whites, mixing well.

  3. Dissolve the cream of tartar and baking soda in the sweet milk, then add to the mixture.

Bake

  1. Season to taste and pour into a prepared baking pan.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 hours.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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 and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Sugar
Creams with butter to add sweetness and help hold air bubbles for a lighter texture.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Egg whites
Add structure and lift through their proteins, which set during baking.
Cream of tartar
Stabilises the egg whites and reacts with baking soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that leavens the batter.

The step that matters

Dissolving the cream of tartar and baking soda in the milk. Baking soda and cream of tartar must be evenly dispersed so the acid and base react throughout the batter, giving an even rise without bitter pockets or dense spots.

“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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