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Dessert

Soots Snow Cake

A light cake made with butter, sugar, arrowroot, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Soots Snow Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter to a cream.

  2. Gradually stir in the sugar and arrowroot while beating the mixture.

  3. Whisk the egg whites to a stiff froth and fold them into the mixture.

  4. Beat the combined mixture for 20 minutes.

  5. Add the flavouring and pour into a buttered mold.

Bake

  1. Bake for 1 to 1¼ hours.

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 + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + arrowroottop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,073 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Butter + arrowroottop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together610 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with the sugar to give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Egg whites
Whisked to a stiff froth, they trap air that lifts and lightens the cake.
Arrowroot
A starch that gives a fine, delicate texture and helps the crumb set.
White sugar
Sweetens the cake and adds structure as it creams with the butter.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whisked whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Folding gently keeps that air in; vigorous stirring knocks it out and leaves a dense cake.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Arrowrootthe original

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