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Dessert

Silver Cake

A sweet cake made with powdered sugar, flour, butter, egg whites, and baking powder, baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter 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 ↓

Silver 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

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

  2. Sift the baking powder into the flour.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the egg whites and mix well.

  3. Gradually add the flour mixture and combine until smooth.

Bake

  1. Line the pan with 2 or 3 layers of paper and cover with an iron lid.

  2. Bake until the cake is cooked through, avoiding rapid cooking on the outside.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter 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 whites
Provide structure and lift, setting the crumb as the cake bakes.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for a tender texture.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Pulverized sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, fluffy texture when creamed with butter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to help the cake rise.

The step that matters

Bake gently without rushing the outside. If the outside cooks too fast, it sets and browns before the centre has risen and cooked through, leaving a dense or unevenly baked cake. A moderate oven lets heat reach the middle while the batter keeps rising.

“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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