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 ↓
Puff 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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
Beat the butter, sugar, eggs, and cream until light and foamy.
Gradually add the flour, mixing a little at a time, along with the sifted cream of tartar.
Dissolve the baking soda in a little warm water and add it to the mixture.
Add the lemon juice and beat for a few more minutes.
Bake
Pour the batter into a shallow pan and bake until golden.
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.
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
- Butter
- Adds richness and tenderness, and helps the cake brown.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the cake as it bakes.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic ingredients to produce gas that lifts the batter.
- Cream of tartar
- Acid that works with the baking soda to help the cake rise and stay light.
- White sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and stay tender.
The step that matters
Adding the baking soda and lemon juice. Baking soda needs an acid to react and release gas. Adding it late and beating only briefly keeps the gas in the batter, so beating too long or waiting too long before baking can lose lift and leave a flat, dense cake.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, cream, egg, flour):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, cream, egg, flour. 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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