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Dessert

Plain Economical Cake

A simple cake made with sugar, butter, lard, eggs, water, flour, baking powder, and flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Plain 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 oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter-lard mixture.

  2. Beat the eggs separately and then add them to the creamed mixture.

  3. Stir in the water.

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until smooth.

  6. Add flavoring to taste.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 30-35 minutes or 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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the creamed mixture hold air for a lighter crumb.
Butter and lard
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and moisture, binding the batter as it sets.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake's crumb as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the cake to rise.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until smooth. Mixing flour into wet ingredients activates gluten, so stirring too much or adding everything at once can make the cake tough. Mix only until the batter is smooth.

“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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