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Dessert

Sunshine Cake

A simple cake made with egg yolks, sugar, butter, milk, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Sunshine Cake

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 ↓

Sunshine 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. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

  2. In a large bowl, beat the egg yolks until thick.

Make the batter

  1. Gradually add the sugar, butter, and milk, mixing well.

  2. Sift together the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  3. Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and stir until smooth.

  4. Add flavoring to taste.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 30-35 minutes.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Egg yolks
Add richness and structure, helping the cake set and giving a tender crumb.
Flour
Provides the main structure once heated, setting the cake's crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness, moisture and a rich flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and keep moisture.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidic ingredients to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter, stabilizing the foam and helping the leavening react.

The step that matters

Stir the dry ingredients in until just smooth. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form, so overmixing can make the cake tough and dense. Stir only until the batter is smooth.

“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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