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Dessert

Sandwich Cake

A sweet cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, milk, flour, baking powder, lemon, and optional leavening, folded with beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Sandwich Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  5. In another bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.

  6. If using cream of tartar, mix it with the flour; if using baking soda, mix it with the milk.

  7. Combine the flour mixture with the butter mixture, then add the milk and lemon extract.

  8. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into four flat tins and bake for about 15-20 minutes.

  2. Once cooled, layer with jelly, custard, or moistened coconut, and frost with the beaten egg whites.

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 + 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 + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

  5. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter, while whipped whites lighten it and help the cake rise and frost.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and tender texture.
Sugar
Creamed with butter, it adds sweetness and helps give the cake a light, fluffy crumb.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure once mixed with the liquids and egg whites.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cakes rise and become light.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stirring too vigorously deflates the whipped whites, losing the air that makes the layers light. Fold gently so the batter stays airy and rises evenly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, milk, flour, cream, coconut):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, milk, flour, cream, coconut. 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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