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 ↓
Snowflake 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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream together the butter and sugar.
Add the beaten egg yolks and half of the flour mixed with the baking powder.
Pour in the milk and mix well.
Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.
Stir in the remaining flour.
Bake
Pour the batter into jelly‑cake tins and bake until golden.
Fill and assemble
For the filling, mix the grated coconut with 1 cup of sugar and the beaten egg whites.
Spread the coconut mixture between the cakes and heap more on top.
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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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).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Yolks enrich the batter, and whipped whites add air that gives the cake its lift and structure.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it sets in the oven.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas when heated, helping the batter rise in the tins.
- Butter
- Adds richness and tenderness, and helps the batter hold air when creamed with sugar.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps give a tender crumb.
- Milk
- Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and keeps the crumb soft.
The step that matters
Fold in the beaten egg whites. The whites hold air that makes the cake light. Stirring too hard or too long deflates them, so the cake bakes up dense instead of airy.
Swap the coconut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, sugar, flour, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits about as well
- Coconutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, sugar, 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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