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Dessert

Geranium Cake

A light cake flavored with rose-geranium leaves, made with butter, sugar, water, flour, baking powder, salt, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Geranium 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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Line a loaf pan with buttered paper and then with rose-geranium leaves.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the flour, salt, and baking powder in a bowl.

  2. In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.

  3. Add the water and flour mixture alternately to the creamed mixture.

  4. Fold in the egg whites and whip hard for 5 minutes.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and tender texture.
Sugar
Creams with butter for a light structure and adds sweetness and browning.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake once the batter is baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and become light.
Egg whites
Whipped into the batter to add lift and a light, airy crumb.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites and whip hard for 5 minutes. Beaten egg white holds air bubbles that expand in the oven. Overmixing once the whites are in can knock out that air and make the cake dense, while too little whipping leaves it flat.

“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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