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Dessert

Lady Baltimore Cake

A light sponge cake flavored with rose extract.

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 ↓

Lady Baltimore Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the rose extract and mix well.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.

  4. Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, alternating with the milk.

Fold and bake

  1. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter until just combined.

  3. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake until a toothpick 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. Flour + milktop 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. Flour + eggtop 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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Granulated sugar
Creams with butter to aerate the batter and adds sweetness and browning.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as the batter bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter so it blends evenly.
Eggs
Whipped whites add lift and, as they set, help give the cake its airy structure.

The step that matters

Fold the egg whites into the batter. Whites beaten to stiff peaks hold the air that lightens the cake. Overmixing while folding knocks that air out, leaving a dense, heavy crumb, so fold gently and only until 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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