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Dessert

Delicate Cake No. 2

A light cake made with powdered sugar, butter, egg whites, milk, flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, sweet cream, coconut, and rose water.

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 ↓

Delicate Cake No. 2

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.

Make the cake

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

  2. Cream together the powdered sugar and butter.

  3. Add the egg whites and mix well.

  4. Stir in the milk, then gradually add the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  5. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake until golden.

Fill and frost

  1. For the filling, whip the sweet cream and mix in the powdered sugar, grated coconut, and rose water.

  2. Once the cake is cooled, fill and frost with the coconut cream mixture.

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

Egg whites
Provide structure and lift to the batter as they set during baking.
Butter
Adds fat and tenderness to the crumb and richness to the flavour.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set in the oven.
Cream of tartar
Stabilises the egg whites and helps the batter hold its airy texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidic ingredients to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Sweet cream
Whipped, it adds moisture and a light, creamy texture to the filling and frosting.

The step that matters

Whipping the sweet cream for the filling. Cream must be whipped to stiff peaks so it holds its shape when spread. Over-whipping can turn it grainy or buttery, while under-whipping leaves a runny filling that will not hold between cake layers.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Coconutthe original

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