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Dessert

Princess Cake

A sweet cake made with sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg whites, baking soda, cream of tartar, and lemon extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Princess Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter until smooth.

  2. Add the beaten egg whites and mix well.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda and cream of tartar in the milk, then add to the mixture.

  4. Stir in the lemon extract and flour until combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into tins lined with buttered paper.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until done.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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
Adds fat that makes the crumb tender and rich.
Egg whites
Trap air and set during baking to give the cake structure.
Flour
Forms the gluten and starch framework that holds the cake's shape.
Baking soda
Reacts with cream of tartar to release gas that makes the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda and stabilizes the whipped whites.
White sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a fine, tender crumb when creamed with butter.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda and cream of tartar in the milk. Baking soda and cream of tartar must be fully dissolved and evenly distributed so the acid and base react throughout the batter. Uneven dissolving leads to patchy rising and dense or soapy spots.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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