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Dessert

Five Minute Cake

A simple cake made with egg, sweet cream, sugar, flour, corn starch, baking powder, and flavoring, baked in a loaf or layers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓

Five Minute Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Break the egg into a teacup and fill it with sweet cream.

  2. Pour this mixture over the sugar and beat well.

  3. Sift together the flour, corn starch, and baking powder.

  4. Add the dry ingredients to the mixture and flavor to taste.

Bake

  1. Bake in a loaf or in layers with any desired filling.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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
Provides structure and binds the batter while adding richness.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and fat, giving the cake a tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps it brown during baking.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set in the oven.
Corn starch
Softens the crumb by diluting the flour's gluten, giving a finer texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven, making the cake rise and become light.

The step that matters

Beating the egg and cream into the sugar. Beating well dissolves the sugar and traps air in the mixture, which helps the cake rise and gives it an even texture once the dry ingredients are added.

“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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