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Dessert

Light Layer Cake

A light, fluffy cake made with eggs, sugar, flour, milk, butter, baking soda, and flavoring, layered with jelly or frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Light Layer 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 the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Gradually add the flour, sweet milk, and butter, mixing well.

  4. Sift the cream of tartar with the flour and add to the mixture.

  5. Dissolve the baking soda in hot water and add it to the batter along with a little salt and flavoring.

Bake and assemble

  1. Pour the batter into greased cake pans and bake for 25-30 minutes.

  2. Once cooled, layer the cakes with jelly or soft frosting and coconut.

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 + buttertop 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Eggs
Beaten with sugar to trap air, giving the cake lift and a light, fluffy crumb.
Flour
Forms the cake's main structure once mixed and set by the oven's heat.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich texture in the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps hold air when beaten with the eggs.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter and works with baking soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that lightens the cake.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in hot water. Baking soda needs to be fully dissolved so it spreads evenly through the batter. Clumps can leave bitter spots or uneven rising, and the leavening reaction depends on the acid in the batter being present when it is added.

“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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