Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
Yellow 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 the batter
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Add the egg yolks and mix well. Stir in the sweet milk.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture.
In another bowl, beat the egg white until stiff peaks form, then fold it into the batter.
Bake and finish
Pour the batter into long tins and bake until golden.
Cut into squares, frost the tops, and place a marshmallow in the center of each square.
Season with pineapple or rose.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + pineappletop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together885 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour and butter 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
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, giving the cake a tender crumb and flavor.
- Egg yolks
- Add fat and emulsifiers, enriching the batter and helping it bind smoothly.
- Egg white
- Whipped to stiff peaks, it traps air that lifts and lightens the batter.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that sets as the cake bakes.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking, making the cake rise and become light.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps browning, while creaming with butter aerates the batter.
The step that matters
Folding in the beaten egg white. Egg white foam holds air only if it is folded in gently. Stirring vigorously deflates the foam, and the cake will bake up dense instead of light.
Swap the pineapple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk, flour, butter, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Pineapplethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, flour, butter, egg. 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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