Name: Isabell Cake
Ingredients: 3 egg whites; 2 scant cups granulated sugar; 1 cup sweet milk; 3 cups all-purpose flour; 2 large tablespoons butter; 2 heaping teaspoons baking powder; 1 square melted chocolate; red fruit coloring

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 ↓

Isabell 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.

Prepare the batter

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, mix egg whites and granulated sugar until well combined.
Add sweet milk, flour, butter, and baking powder; mix until smooth.
Divide the batter into three parts.
Leave one part white, add melted chocolate to the second part, and color the third part with a few drops of red fruit coloring.

Bake the layers

Pour the white batter into a cake pan and bake until done.
Pour the chocolate batter into another pan and bake until done.
Pour the pink batter into a third pan and bake until done.

Assemble and ice

Once cooled, cover the dark layer with white icing.
Stack the white layer on top of the dark layer, then cover with icing.
Top with the pink layer and cover the entire cake with icing.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,404 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,128 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked 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

Egg whites: Whipped with sugar to add structure and lightness to the batter.
All-purpose flour: Provides the main structure that holds the cake layers together.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter so the layers rise and become tender.
Butter: Adds fat for a softer crumb and richer flavor.
Granulated sugar: Sweetens the batter and helps it brown and stay moist.

“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.