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Dessert

Rose Cream Cake

A light cake flavored with rose extract, layered with pink middle, finished with rose‑flavored icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Rose Cream 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. Sift the flour 5 times and mix in the baking powder.

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

  4. Add the milk and mix well.

  5. Gradually add the flour mixture, mixing until smooth.

Add the egg whites

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

  2. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter.

  3. Divide the batter into three layers, coloring the middle layer pink with fruit extract.

Bake and ice

  1. Pour each layer into a greased cake pan and bake until golden.

  2. For the icing, prepare boiled icing and flavor it slightly with rose extract.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as the batter sets in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps give a light, fine texture.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavor, and holds air when creamed with sugar.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that lifts and lightens the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the layers to rise and become airy.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter so it mixes smoothly with the flour.

The step that matters

Gently fold the egg whites into the batter. Whipped egg whites hold air that gives the cake its lightness. Stirring hard or vigorously knocks that air out, leaving a denser crumb.

“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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