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 ↓
Mountain-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.
Make the cake
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the flour and cream of tartar.
Melt the butter and add it to the mixture.
Dissolve the baking soda in a little boiling water and add it to the batter.
Pour the batter into jelly pans and bake until golden.
Make the icing and assemble
Once cooled, beat the whites of 2 eggs.
Dampen the sugar with coconut milk and heat to make icing.
Thicken the icing with grated coconut and spread it between the layers of cake.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,648 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,467 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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 their whites help the icing become light and firm.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the cake once baked.
- Butter
- Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter and stabilizes the egg structure for a lighter texture.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas, helping the cake rise.
- White sugar
- Sweetens the cake and icing and helps the icing set when heated.
The step that matters
Dissolve the baking soda in a little boiling water. Baking soda must be fully dissolved and mixed evenly into the batter so it reacts with the acid evenly; clumps can leave bitter spots and uneven rising.
Swap the coconut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, butter, cream, milk, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutthe original
- Figfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, butter, cream, milk, sugar. 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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