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Dessert

Economical Cake

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Economical 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat the eggs separately until fluffy.

Make and bake the cake

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, and sugar.

  2. Add the butter and milk to the dry ingredients and mix well.

  3. Fold in the beaten eggs gently.

  4. Pour the batter into a greased cake tin.

  5. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Finish

  1. Cool and layer with fresh berries and sauce if desired.

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. Flour + buttertop 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. Flour + sugartop 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).

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

Eggs
Beaten eggs add air and structure, helping the cake rise and set.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, making the cake rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer texture and flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and keep moisture.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and gives the batter moisture and softness.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten eggs. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the eggs. Vigorous mixing knocks out that air and deflates the batter, leaving a denser cake with less rise.

“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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