Skip to main content
Dessert

One, Two, Three, Four Cake

A cake made with butter, sugar, flour, four eggs, cream of tartar, baking soda, and warm water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

One, Two, Three, Four 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 the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the butter, sugar, and egg yolks until well combined.

  2. Gradually add the flour and mix thoroughly.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then fold them into the batter.

  4. Alternatively, omit the eggs and mix 2 teaspoons of cream of tartar into the flour.

Add leavening and bake

  1. When ready to bake, quickly mix in 1 teaspoon of baking soda dissolved in 1 cup of warm water.

  2. Pour the batter into two loaf pans and bake immediately.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Eggs
Whites trap air for lift, while yolks add richness and help bind the batter.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the crumb tender and gives a rich flavor.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's shape as it sets.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake, softens the crumb and helps the crust brown.
Cream of tartar
Acts as an acid that reacts with baking soda to produce rising gas.
Baking soda
Releases carbon dioxide when combined with an acid, leavening the batter.

The step that matters

Mix in the baking soda and bake immediately. Baking soda starts releasing carbon dioxide as soon as it meets the acid and liquid. Delaying the bake lets that gas escape, so the cake may rise poorly and turn out dense.

“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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes