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Cornfllour Cakes

A simple cake made with cornflour, butter, sugar, egg, baking powder, and flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Cornfllour Cakes

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. Soften the butter in the oven.

  2. Beat the softened butter and sugar together.

  3. Gradually add the cornflour and egg alternately.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into tins.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until light brown.

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 + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat that gives the cakes a tender, short texture and rich flavor.
Fine sugar
Sweetens the cakes and, beaten with butter, traps air that lightens the crumb.
Egg
Binds the mixture and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the cakes rise and become light.
Cornflour
Provides the main structure, and its low gluten gives a fine, tender crumb.

The step that matters

Gradually add the cornflour and egg alternately. Adding the dry and wet parts in small amounts keeps the batter smooth and emulsified. Dumping everything in at once can curdle the mix and produce a dense, uneven crumb.

“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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