Name: Cornstarch Cake
Ingredients: 1 cup butter; 4 teaspoons baking powder; 2 cups fine cake sugar; 5 egg whites; 1 cup milk; ½ teaspoon lemon extract; 1 cup corn starch; ½ teaspoon vanilla extract; 2 cups flour

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Cornstarch 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.

Cream the butter in a mixing bowl using a wooden spoon.
Gradually add the sugar.
Sift the corn starch, flour, salt, and baking powder together twice.
Add the dry mixture alternately with the milk to the butter mixture.
Gently fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites and add the vanilla extract.
Pour the mixture into two buttered and floured brick-shaped bread pans.
Bake for 45 minutes in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

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.

Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,187 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,943 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,955 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Swap the lemon

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

Coconutfits better
Figfits better
Blueberryfits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, milk, corn, vanilla, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.