Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Love 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 cake
Beat the egg whites on a platter until stiff.
Gradually stir in the powdered sugar.
Add the sifted flour and cream of tartar, mixing well.
Immediately bake in two large jelly cake tins at 350°F (175°C).
Make the filling and assemble
For the filling, whip the cold heavy cream with powdered sugar and vanilla until stiff.
Color the whipped cream pink if desired.
Once the cakes are cold, spread the whipped cream between the layers and on top.
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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Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together35,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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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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Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,241 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,301 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 into a foam that gives the cake its light, airy structure.
- All-purpose flour
- Sets the cake's structure once heated, holding the foam in place.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the cake and stabilizes the beaten egg white foam.
- Cream of tartar
- Stabilizes the beaten egg whites, helping them hold their volume.
- Heavy cream
- Whipped to form the rich, fluffy filling that adds moisture and fat.
The step that matters
Immediately bake in two large jelly cake tins at 350°F (175°C).. Beaten egg white foam begins to lose air as it sits, so the batter should go into the oven right after mixing to keep the cake light.
Swap the vanilla
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, flour, cream):
- Raisinfits about as well
- Vanillathe original
- Figfits less well
- Strawberryfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour, cream. 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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