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Dessert

Delicate Cake

A light cake made with egg whites, sugar, butter, milk, flour, corn starch, cream of tartar, soda, flavoring, and preserved citron peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Delicate Cake

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 ↓

Delicate 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

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

  2. In a large bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff.

  3. In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

Make the batter

  1. Add the sweet milk and mix well.

  2. Gradually add the flour, corn starch, cream of tartar, and soda, mixing until smooth.

  3. Add flavoring to taste.

  4. Pour the batter into prepared pans.

  5. Place thin pieces of preserved citron peel on top before baking.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + milktop 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. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

Egg whites
Beaten until stiff to trap air, giving the cake lightness and a open, airy crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and a tender texture.
Sugar
Creamed with butter for a light, fluffy base and adds sweetness and browning.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as the batter sets in the oven.
Cream of tartar
Stabilizes the beaten egg whites and helps the cake rise with the soda.
Soda
Reacts with the acidic ingredients to produce gas that helps the cake rise.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites hold air only when fully whipped and kept free of fat or yolk. Under-beaten or greasy whites collapse, leaving a dense cake with less rise.

“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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