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 ↓
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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream the butter and gradually add the powdered sugar.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Fold the egg whites into the butter mixture.
Sift together the flour and baking powder, then add to the mixture alternately with the milk.
Add flavoring to taste.
Pour the batter into greased jelly tins.
Bake and assemble
Bake until golden brown.
Once cooled, layer the cakes with icing and sprinkle each layer thickly with grated coconut.
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
- Butter
- Creams with the sugar to give the cake richness and a tender crumb.
- Egg whites
- Whipped to stiff peaks to lighten the batter and help it rise.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and stays light.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the batter and dissolves easily into the creamed butter.
- Milk
- Adds moisture so the batter bakes softly and spreads evenly.
The step that matters
Folding the egg whites into the butter mixture. Whipped egg whites trap air that makes the cake light. Stirring them in roughly or overmixing knocks out that air, so the cake bakes dense and flat.
Swap the coconut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, milk, egg, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits about as well
- Coconutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, egg, sugar. 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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