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Cornstarch Cake

A light cake made with cornstarch, butter, milk, powdered sugar, and egg whites, flavored with lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Cornstarch 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

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

  3. Add the milk and mix well.

  4. Sift together the cornstarch, cream of tartar, and baking soda, then gradually add to the butter mixture.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  6. Add lemon flavoring to taste.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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. Milk + buttertop 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 + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air and lighten the cake's texture.
Cornstarch
Provides a tender, fine crumb with less gluten structure than flour.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to add richness and a soft, tender texture.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps create a light, fluffy creamed base.
Cream of tartar
Stabilizes the whipped egg whites, helping them hold their peaks.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity in the batter to help the cake rise.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stirring vigorously deflates the whipped foam that gives the cake its lift. Fold gently with a spatula so the air bubbles stay trapped in the batter while it bakes.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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