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Dessert

Madeira Cake

A light, buttery cake made with eggs, whole wheat flour, sugar, butter, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Madeira Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and gradually add the sugar, beating well.

  2. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff.

  3. Add the egg yolks, one at a time, to the beaten whites and beat well.

  4. Combine the egg mixture with the creamed butter and sugar.

  5. Gradually add the flour and nutmeg, mixing thoroughly.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for one hour.

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Wheat + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together359 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Wheat + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

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

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

Eggs
Add structure and moisture, and the beaten whites lighten the batter.
Whole wheat flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown while keeping it moist.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff. Stiff whites trap air that lifts the batter as it bakes. Underbeaten whites give a dense cake, while overbeaten whites turn dry and grainy and collapse when mixed in.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, wheat, flour, sugar, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, wheat, flour, sugar, butter. 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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