Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Yellow Perfection
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
Beat the egg whites separately until fluffy.
Beat the egg yolks separately until fluffy.
Mix the sugar with the beaten yolks until well combined.
Sift the flour and baking powder together two or three times.
Gradually mix the water into the sugar and yolk mixture.
Gently fold in the sifted flour just before pouring into the pan.
Do not grease the pan.
Bake and cool
Bake for 40 minutes or until the top begins to wrinkle.
Once baked, turn the cake upside down on a cooling rack until completely cool before removing from the pan.
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.
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
- Eggs
- Whites trap air for lift, while yolks add richness and structure to the crumb.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the sponge's airy crumb once set.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter to help the cake rise.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps stabilise the beaten yolk mixture.
The step that matters
Gently fold in the sifted flour. Folding keeps the air beaten into the egg whites from collapsing. Vigorous stirring deflates the batter and results in a denser cake.
“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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