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 ↓
Layer 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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Beat the egg yolks and whites separately until the whites form stiff peaks.
Make the batter
In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add the milk and mix well.
Sift the flour and baking powder together, then gradually add to the butter mixture.
Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.
Add flavoring to taste.
Bake and serve
Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake until golden brown.
Cool and fill with your choice of cake filling.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Walnut + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,873 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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
- Eggs
- Yolks add richness and structure, while whipped whites lighten the batter and help it rise.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps trap air for a light texture.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and creaming it with sugar traps air in the batter.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter to make the cake rise.
The step that matters
Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Whipped whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Vigorous stirring knocks that air out, leaving a denser cake.
Swap the walnut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, butter, milk, flour):
- Almondfits better
- Chestnutfits about as well
- Milletfits about as well
- Walnutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, milk, flour. 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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