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Corn-Starch Cake

A simple cake made with corn starch, sugar, butter, eggs, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,345 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Corn-Starch Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grease a cake tin with butter.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat 2 ounces of butter until creamy.

  2. Add ½ cup of loaf sugar and mix well.

  3. Break in 2 eggs and beat the mixture until combined.

  4. Gently stir in ½ cup of corn-starch and 1 teaspoon of baking powder, beating for 5 minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into the tin and bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.

  2. After baking, turn the cake out of the tin and let it cool on a plate.

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. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Corn-starch
Forms the light, tender crumb that gives the cake its body.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and moisture as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown lightly as it bakes.

The step that matters

Beating the batter after adding the corn-starch and baking powder. Beating for the full five minutes after adding the dry ingredients develops the structure that holds the rise. Stirring too little can leave the cake dense, while overworking can make it tough.

“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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