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 ↓
White 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.
Prepare the batter
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add half of the milk and mix well.
Sift the flour and baking powder together, then add part of it to the mixture.
Add the remaining milk, then the rest of the flour, mixing until combined.
Gently fold in the egg whites until fully incorporated.
If desired, add raisins, currants, and spices to part of the mixture.
Bake and serve
Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake until golden.
Once baked, layer the cakes and frost as desired.
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 + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 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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Flour + eggtop 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
- Butter
- Adds richness and tenderness, and helps the cake brown while keeping its crumb soft.
- Sugar
- Creaming with butter traps air and adds sweetness and golden browning.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
- Egg whites
- Whipped air and protein add lift and set the cake's structure.
The step that matters
Folding in the egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles from the whites intact. Stirring vigorously deflates the batter, which leads to 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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