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Dessert

Minnehaha Cake

A cake made with sugar, butter, eggs, flour, baking powder, milk, boiling water, powdered sugar, egg whites, and tartaric acid.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Minnehaha Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cake batter

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the baking powder, flour, and milk; mix into the creamed mixture.

Make the cream

  1. For the cream, pour boiling water over the powdered sugar and boil until thick.

  2. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold in the cooled sugar mixture.

  3. Add tartaric acid and flavor to taste.

  4. Spread the cream between the cake layers and on top.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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 for a tender crumb and richness when creamed with sugar.
Eggs
Provide structure and richness, and help the batter hold its air.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Flour
Forms the cake's main structure once mixed and baked.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the cream and give it a soft, airy texture.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves in boiling water and thickens into a sweet, spreadable cream.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold in the cooled sugar mixture. If the sugar mixture is still hot, it will deflate the whipped whites and the cream will lose its airy texture. Whites must be beaten fully so they hold their structure while being folded gently.

“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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