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Dessert

Mountain Cake

A light, fluffy cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, corn starch, flour, baking powder, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Mountain 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 large bowl, beat the butter until creamy.

  3. Gradually add the sugar and continue to beat until light and fluffy.

  4. Add the egg yolks one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  5. In a separate bowl, combine the corn starch, flour, baking powder, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  6. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, mixing until just combined.

Bake and frost

  1. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter until no streaks remain.

  3. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  4. For the icing, beat the reserved egg whites until stiff peaks form and frost the cooled cake.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, 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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
White sugar
Sweetens the cake and, beaten with butter, helps create a light, fluffy structure.
Eggs
Egg yolks add richness and structure; whipped whites add air that lifts the cake.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to make the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Stabilizes whipped egg whites so they hold their peaks.
Corn starch
Softens the crumb by diluting gluten, giving a finer, more tender texture.

The step that matters

Folding the egg whites into the batter. Whipped whites hold the air that lifts the cake. Folding gently and only until no streaks remain keeps that air from collapsing, so the cake stays light.

“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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