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Cokn'starch Cake

A light cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, corn starch, milk, cream of tartar, baking soda, and bitter almonds.

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

Cokn'starch 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.

Prepare and cream

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

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

Make the batter

  1. Add the eggs, beating until well combined.

  2. Mix in the flour and corn starch alternately with the milk.

  3. Flavor with bitter almonds to taste.

  4. Sift the cream of tartar with the flour.

  5. Dissolve the baking soda in 1 teaspoon of milk and add it to the mixture.

Bake

  1. Beat thoroughly and bake immediately.

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. Corn + almondtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together485 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, fine crumb when creamed with sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps trap air when beaten with butter for lightness.
Eggs
Provide structure and binding, setting the crumb as the cake bakes.
Corn starch
Creates a very tender, delicate texture, softer than flour alone.
Baking soda
Releases carbon dioxide with acid to make the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Provides acid that reacts with baking soda, helping the cake rise and stabilising the structure.

The step that matters

Beat thoroughly and bake immediately.. Baking soda and cream of tartar release carbon dioxide once wet and mixed, so the batter should go into the oven right away. Waiting lets the bubbles escape, leaving a denser, flatter cake.

“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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