Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Ice Cream Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the batter
Beat the egg whites until stiff.
Cream the butter and sugar together.
Sift the flour, corn starch, and baking powder together.
Add the dry ingredients alternately with the milk to the creamed mixture.
Fold in the beaten egg whites last.
Bake and frost
Divide the batter into three layers and bake until done.
Frost with boiled or marshmallow frosting.
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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Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,673 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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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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Corn + almondtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together485 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Milk + corntop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,245 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg whites
- Beaten until stiff, they trap air and give the cake its light, airy structure.
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps cream with butter to build a light, aerated base.
- Flour
- Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking so the layers rise and become light.
- Corn starch
- Softens the flour's gluten, giving the cake a finer, more tender texture.
The step that matters
Fold in the beaten egg whites last. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the egg whites. Stirring vigorously would deflate the foam, leaving the layers denser and less risen.
“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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