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Dessert

Sunshine Cake

A chocolate and walnut cake baked with eggs, butter, and flour.

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 the batter

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

  2. Beat the egg yolks thoroughly.

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

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

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Walnut + flourtop 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).

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

Eggs
Provide structure and richness, and whipped whites trap air that lifts the batter.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure as its proteins set during baking.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender, rich crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep the crumb tender.
Grated chocolate
Gives the cake its chocolate flavor and deep color.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until very stiff. Stiff whites trap air that gives the cake lift. Underbeaten whites collapse and make a dense cake, while overbeaten whites turn grainy and dry. Stir the whites in gently so the air is not lost.

Swap the walnut

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

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

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