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 ↓
Yellow 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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the egg yolks and mix well.
Stir in the sweet milk and flavoring.
In another bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until smooth.
Bake and cool
Pour the batter into greased cake pans and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Let the cakes cool before adding lemon filling or orange icing.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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
- Egg yolks
- Add richness, colour and structure, helping the crumb set and hold together.
- Butter
- Adds fat and tenderness, and creaming it with sugar traps air that helps the cake rise.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, fluffy texture when creamed with butter.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
- Sweet milk
- Adds moisture and helps form a smooth batter.
The step that matters
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until smooth.. Adding flour in portions and mixing only until smooth keeps the batter from becoming overworked, which would develop too much gluten and make the cake tough.
Swap the lemon
The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, butter, milk, flour):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, milk, 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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