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Dessert

Snow Cake

A light, fluffy cake flavored with almond extract, made with cornstarch, flour, baking powder, butter, sugar, milk, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Snow 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 the batter

  1. Mix together the cornstarch and 2½ cups of flour with the baking powder; sift three times.

  2. Cream the butter, then gradually add the sugar.

  3. Alternately add the sifted flour and milk to the butter mixture.

  4. Flavor with almond extract, then fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Cornstarch
Lightens the crumb, giving the cake a tender, fine texture.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cake rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture, and carries flavor.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in, they add air and lightness to the batter.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Folding in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only if whipped to stiff peaks and folded in gently. Overmixing or deflating them loses the air that gives the cake its light rise.

“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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