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Dessert

French Cake

A simple cake made with flour, sugar, butter, milk or cream, eggs, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

French 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.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.

  2. Whisk the eggs in a separate bowl and add them to the butter and sugar mixture.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk and add it to the mixture.

  4. Gradually add the flour and mix until well combined.

  5. Beat the entire mixture vigorously for 10 minutes.

Bake

  1. Grease your baking pans and pour the batter into them.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, binding the batter and helping it set.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavour, and helps trap air when creamed with sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps hold air for a lighter texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter's liquid to produce gas, helping the cake rise and brown.
Milk or cream
Supplies moisture that hydrates the flour and keeps the crumb soft.

The step that matters

Beat the entire mixture vigorously for 10 minutes. Vigorous beating develops the flour's gluten and incorporates air, which affects the cake's final texture. Overbeating after the flour is added can make it tough and dense.

“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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