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Dessert

Sand Cake

A cake made with butter, egg yolks, lemon peel, all-purpose flour, potato flour, sugar, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Sand Cake

Why it works: Butter and flour 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 ↓

Sand 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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter in a bowl.

  2. Add the egg yolks and grated lemon peel, mixing well.

  3. Gradually incorporate the all-purpose flour, potato flour, and sifted sugar.

  4. Fold in the whipped egg whites gently.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

  2. For a richer cake, add ⅓ cup of rum or brandy and the grated peel of a whole lemon.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Lemon + potatotop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 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

Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives a rich, tender crumb.
Egg yolks
Add richness and fat, and help bind the batter smoothly.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in, they trap air that lifts the cake as it bakes.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together.
Potato flour
Adds lightness and a tender, fine crumb with less gluten.
Sifted sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles in the whipped whites. Stirring or beating hard deflates the batter, so the cake rises less and bakes up dense.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, lemon, flour, sugar. 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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