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Dessert

Moonshine Cake

A baked cake made with flour, cornstarch, baking powder, cream of tartar, sugar, water, eggs, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Moonshine Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the syrup

  1. In a saucepan, make a syrup by combining water and sugar, then cool it.

Make the batter

  1. Sift the flour, cornstarch, and cream of tartar together twice.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually stir in the cooled syrup.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks and mix in the flour.

  4. Combine the egg yolk mixture with the egg white mixture.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into a deep ungreased pan with a tube.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 40 to 60 minutes without opening the oven door for the first 20 minutes.

  3. Once done, turn the cake upside down on glasses until it cools and sweats.

  4. Frost as desired.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Eggs
Whipped whites give the cake its light, airy structure, while yolks add richness.
Cream of tartar
Stabilizes the whipped egg whites so they hold their volume longer.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that sets the cake's crumb as it bakes.
Cornstarch
Lightens the crumb and gives a tender texture by diluting the flour's gluten.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep the whipped egg whites stable as they are made into syrup.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff, then fold in the cooled syrup gently. Egg whites hold air only when whipped to stiff peaks; stirring too vigorously after adding the syrup deflates them, and warm syrup would cook and thin the foam, so it must be cooled first and combined gently to keep the cake light.

“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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