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Dessert

White Mountain Cake

A light cake made with powdered sugar, butter, egg yolks, sweet milk, flour, baking powder, and folded with beaten egg whites, topped with coconut icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and coconut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,294 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

White 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 batter

  1. Cream the butter and powdered sugar together.

  2. Add the egg yolks and sweet milk, mixing well.

  3. Sift together the flour and baking powder, then add to the mixture.

  4. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake and ice

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. For the icing, beat together the powdered sugar, sweet cream, and vanilla until creamy.

  3. Fold in the grated coconut and spread over the cooled cake.

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. Vanilla + coconuttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Beaten to stiff peaks and folded in, they lighten the batter and help it rise.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cake rise and become airy.
Egg yolks
Add richness, moisture and binding to the batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stirring vigorously deflates the whipped foam that gives the cake its lift. Fold gently with a spatula, cutting through and turning the batter, so the air stays trapped and the cake bakes up light.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Coconutthe original
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Strawberryfits about as well

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