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Dessert

Silver Cake, No. 2

A light, almond-flavored cake made with sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg whites, cream of tartar, baking soda, and bitter almonds.

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

Silver Cake, No. 2

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 the batter

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

  2. In a mixing bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the milk and mix well.

  4. In another bowl, sift together the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.

Fold in the egg whites and bake

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently fold them into the batter.

  2. Add bitter almonds to taste and mix gently.

  3. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 25-30 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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps give it a light texture.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and traps air when creamed with sugar.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Egg whites
Beaten to stiff peaks, they trap air that lifts and lightens the batter.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter, stabilizing the beaten egg whites and helping the leavening react.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to release gas that makes the cake rise.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stirring instead of folding knocks out the air trapped in the whites, leaving a dense cake. Fold gently, just until no white streaks remain, so the batter keeps its lift.

“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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