Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓
Angel 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
Sift the sugar and flour together four times before measuring.
Make the batter
Add salt to the egg whites and cream of tartar when the eggs are half beaten.
Beat the egg whites until very stiff.
Carefully fold in the sugar and then the flour.
Bake
Bake in an ungreased pan at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,481 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
- Egg whites
- Trap air when beaten, giving the cake its light, airy structure.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps stabilise the beaten egg whites.
- Flour
- Provides the starch and gluten that set the cake's structure as it bakes.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the egg whites, stabilising the foam so it holds its volume.
The step that matters
Carefully fold in the sugar and then the flour. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles in the beaten egg whites intact. Stirring or deflating the foam causes the cake to lose rise and turn dense.
“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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