Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓
Chicago Dessert 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).
In a bowl, cream together the sugar and egg yolks.
In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Combine the flour and baking powder, then add to the creamed mixture alternately with the milk.
Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.
Pour the batter into two greased cake pans and bake for 25-30 minutes.
Make the cream
For the cream, bring 1 cup of milk to a boil.
In a separate bowl, mix corn starch with 2 tablespoons of milk until smooth.
Add the corn starch mixture to the boiling milk, stirring constantly until thickened.
Remove from heat and stir in the beaten egg, sugar, and lemon or vanilla extract.
Assemble
Once the cakes are cool, layer them with the cream.
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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Milk + corntop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Flour + corntop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,165 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,927 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Whites trap air for lift and structure, while yolks add richness and tenderness to the crumb.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps keep the crumb tender and moist.
- Milk
- Adds moisture to the batter and thickens with starch to make the cream.
- Corn starch
- Thickens the cream as its granules swell when heated in the milk.
The step that matters
Thickening the cream. Corn starch must be stirred constantly while the milk heats, or it can lump or scorch before it thickens evenly. Adding the egg off the heat avoids scrambling it.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, egg, milk, corn):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, egg, milk, corn. 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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