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Dessert

French Cake

A light, fluffy cake made with sugar, butter, milk, eggs, flour, and baking powder.

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 ↓

French 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 the sugar and butter together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the sweet milk and mix well.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks and then fold them into the mixture.

  4. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently fold them into the batter.

  5. Sift the baking powder into the flour and gradually add it to the mixture, stirring until just combined.

  6. Add your chosen flavoring and mix gently.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Eggs
Yolks add richness and the whipped whites lighten the batter and give it structure as it sets.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake's crumb as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, causing the batter to rise and become airy.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender, fine texture when creamed with butter.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and traps air when creamed with sugar.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and helps form a smooth batter that bakes evenly.

The step that matters

Folding the egg whites into the batter. Whites beaten to stiff peaks hold air that gives the sponge its lift. Overmixing or stirring vigorously deflates the foam, leaving a dense cake, so fold gently until just combined.

“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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