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Dessert

Vanilla Cakes

A vanilla cake made with sugar, lard, eggs, milk, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, salt, mace, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Vanilla Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA medium oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a medium oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Rub the sugar and lard together.

  2. Gradually add the eggs.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk and add it to the mixture along with the mace.

  4. Mix the salt and cream of tartar with the dry flour.

  5. Combine all ingredients until well mixed.

Shape and bake

  1. Drop small cakes from your hand onto a baking sheet.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

  3. Flavor with vanilla before serving.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

  4. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, binding the batter and helping it set.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar and milk to produce gas that lifts the cakes.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with the baking soda to help the cakes rise.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown as they bake.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and keeps the cakes moist.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in the milk and add it to the mixture along with the mace.. Baking soda must be fully dissolved so it reacts evenly with the cream of tartar. Unevenly distributed soda can leave bitter spots or uneven rising.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Peppermintfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, milk, cream, flour, vanilla. 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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