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Dessert

Snow Cake

A light, airy cake made with egg whites, butter, flour, sugar, and milk, topped with frosting and optional almond paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Snow 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.

Make the batter

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

  2. Beat the butter until creamy, then gradually mix in the flour.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gradually add the sugar.

  4. Stir the milk into the egg mixture.

  5. Combine the two mixtures and mix well.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a loaf pan or layer pans.

  2. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Assemble

  1. Layer with boiled frosting and pounded almonds or whipped cream as desired.

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 + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air and give the cake its light, airy structure.
White sugar
Sweetens the cake and stabilizes the whipped egg whites so the foam holds.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Cornstarch
Softens the flour's gluten, producing a finer, more delicate crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with acid in the batter to release gas, helping the cake rise.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Stiff peaks trap air that gives the cake its lift. Adding sugar gradually helps the foam stay stable, and gentle folding keeps it from deflating when combined with the other mixture.

“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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