Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Savoy Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a warm oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Prepare the mold
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Warm a little butter and use it to grease a 1 quart mold.
Sift loaf sugar into the mold until it sticks to the butter, then knock out the excess.
Dust the mold with a little flour.
Bake
Fill the mold with the cake batter and tie a strip of paper around the top, making it an inch higher than the edge.
Bake until firm and dry.
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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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
- Cake batter
- Provides the structure and crumb that set into the finished cake as it bakes.
- Loaf sugar
- Forms a sweet, lightly crisp coating on the mold walls that helps the cake release.
- Butter
- Greases the mold so the cake releases cleanly and its surface can brown.
- Flour
- Dusted over the greased mold to give the cake's exterior a fine, even surface.
The step that matters
Bake until firm and dry. Batter that is pulled too early stays wet in the centre and may collapse as it cools. Baking until the structure has set and the surface is dry gives a stable, well-risen 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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