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Baking

French Cake

A light, airy cake made with butter, sugar, milk, flour, baking powder, and beaten egg whites, flavored with bitter almond or rose water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

French Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the milk and mix well.

  3. Sift the flour with the baking powder and add to the mixture.

  4. Flavor with extract of bitter almonds or rose water to taste.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a loaf for 25 to 30 minutes or in layers for 6 to 10 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

  2. Fill with almond or other filling and ice to taste.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that lifts the cake as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, giving the cake its rise.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and tenderness.
Sugar
Creamed with butter to help build a light, fine crumb and add sweetness.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure as the batter sets in the oven.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stirring too vigorously deflates the whipped whites, losing the air that gives the cake its lift. Fold gently, just until no streaks remain.

“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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