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Dessert

Gold Cake

A sweet, buttery cake made with eggs, flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and sweet milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Gold Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  4. Combine the flour, cornstarch, and baking powder in another bowl.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture, alternating with the sweet milk.

  6. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  7. Add flavoring to taste and mix until just combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that lifts the cake and gives it a light crumb.
Egg yolks
Add richness and fat, and help emulsify the creamed butter and sugar into a smooth batter.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to hold air and add tenderness and flavor.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cake rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender texture when creamed with butter.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stirring too vigorously knocks out the air trapped in the whipped whites, which leads to a dense, flat cake. Fold gently, just until no white streaks remain.

“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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