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Dessert

Sunshine Cake

A chocolate walnut cake made with flour, sugar, butter, sweet milk, eggs, baking powder, grated chocolate, walnuts, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Sunshine Cake

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 ↓

Sunshine 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.

Prepare

  1. Sift and measure the flour and sugar, then set aside.

  2. Beat the egg yolks thoroughly.

  3. Beat the egg whites until frothy, then add cream of tartar and beat until very stiff.

Mix and bake

  1. Gently stir in the sugar, then the beaten yolks, followed by the flour.

  2. Fold in the grated chocolate and chopped walnuts.

  3. Pour the batter into a greased pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 35 to 50 minutes.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Chocolate + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Eggs
Beaten whites trap air for lift, while yolks add richness and structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the cake a tender, soft crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and richer flavor.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise in the oven.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and helps bind the batter into a smooth mixture.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until very stiff, then folding gently. Stiff whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Overbeating them makes them grainy and dry, while stirring or folding too hard deflates the foam and leaves a dense cake.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, milk, egg, chocolate):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Hazelnutfits about as well
  3. Pecansfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, milk, egg, chocolate. 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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