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 ↓
Birthday 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Make the batter
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Stir in the milk.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.
Bake
Pour the batter into a large dripping pan and bake for about 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Frost and decorate
Once cooled, frost the cake heavily.
When the frosting is partly dry, mark it off in small squares and place half a walnut meat on each square.
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.
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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 + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,873 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
- Creaming with sugar traps air and, with its fat, gives a tender, rich crumb.
- Sugar
- Sweetens, helps trap air when creamed, and aids browning of the crust.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake's shape as it bakes.
- Eggs
- Add structure, binding and richness to the batter.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with acid in the batter to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
- Cream of tartar
- Acid that reacts with baking soda to help the cake rise and stabilizes the batter.
The step that matters
Mixing until just combined. Once the dry ingredients are added, overmixing develops too much gluten in the flour, which makes the cake tough and dense instead of tender.
Swap the walnut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, flour, egg, milk, cream, meat):
- Almondfits better
- Walnutthe original
- Pistachiofits about as well
- Chestnutfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, egg, milk, cream, meat. 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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