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 ↓
Whipped Cream 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, cream together the sugar and butter.
Add the eggs and milk, mixing well.
Sift together the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda, then add to the mixture.
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake until golden.
Top and serve
Once the cake is cool, whip the sweet cream until stiff.
Sweeten and flavor the whipped cream to taste.
Spread the whipped cream over the cake and serve fresh.
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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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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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 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
- Sugar
- Sweetens the batter and helps the cake brown as it bakes.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavor to the cake.
- Eggs
- Provide structure and binding to hold the cake together.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set in the oven.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter and helps stabilize and lighten the rise with baking soda.
- Sweet cream
- Whipped into a stiff foam that gives the topping its light, airy texture.
The step that matters
Whipping the sweet cream until stiff. Cream must be cold enough and whipped only until it holds stiff peaks. Overwhipping turns it grainy and can make it separate into butter, while underwhipping leaves a runny topping that will not hold its shape on the cake.
“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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