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Dessert

Birthday Cake with Glaze

A butter, sugar, egg, flour, milk, rose water cake baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Birthday Cake with Glaze

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. Sift the sugar, then measure it.

  2. Wash the butter in ice water until it is white and creamy, then dry it with a towel.

  3. Add the butter to the sugar and rub both to a creamy consistency.

Make the batter

  1. Stir in the egg yolks one by one, beating until light and foamy.

  2. Stir in 1 cup of sifted flour.

  3. Add the milk.

  4. Add another cup of sifted flour and mix well.

  5. Stir in the last cup of flour with the baking powder sifted in.

  6. Gently fold in the well-beaten egg whites and the rose water.

Bake and cool

  1. Butter a large round cake tin and line the bottom with paper.

  2. Pour in the mixture.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1 hour.

  4. Test for doneness by inserting a fine broom whisk in the center; it should come out dry.

  5. Let the cake cool partially on a wire rack.

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

Butter
Adds fat that creams with sugar to give a tender, fine crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps trap air when creamed with the butter.
Eggs
Yolks add richness and structure; well-beaten whites add lift and a light texture.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake's shape as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises in the oven.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter for an even bake.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the beaten egg whites. The whites hold the air that makes the cake light. Stirring or mixing hard knocks out that air, so the cake turns dense and may not rise well.

“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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