Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Delicious 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 the batter
Sift the flour 4 times.
Add the cream of tartar.
Sift the mixture 2 more times.
Beat the egg whites until stiff.
Beat the yolks separately until thick.
Gradually add the sugar to the yolks while beating continuously.
Fold the egg whites into the yolk mixture gently.
Bake
Pour the batter into an ungreased pan.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 40 to 60 minutes.
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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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,481 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour and egg 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
- Whipped whites trap air and give the cake its light, airy structure.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the starch and gluten that set the cake's structure as it bakes.
- Granulated sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps stabilize the beaten egg yolks and whites.
- Cream of tartar
- Stabilizes the beaten egg whites so they hold their volume longer.
The step that matters
Fold the egg whites into the yolk mixture gently.. Folding preserves the air whipped into the egg whites. Vigorous stirring deflates the foam, which leads to a dense, flat 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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