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Dessert

Tex Egg Cake

A light, fluffy cake made with egg whites, sugar, butter, flour, milk, baking soda, cream of tartar, and almond extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Tex Egg 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

  2. In a large bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  3. In another bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

Make the batter

  1. Gradually add the flour, milk, baking soda, and cream of tartar to the butter mixture, mixing well.

  2. Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the batter.

  3. Add almond extract to taste and mix gently.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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 + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Beaten to stiff peaks, they trap air and give the cake lift and a light crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and a tender texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sugar
Creamed with butter for a fine texture and adds sweetness and browning.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
An acid that stabilizes the whipped egg whites and reacts with baking soda to aid rising.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stirring too hard knocks out the air trapped in the whipped whites, so the cake rises less and turns denser. Fold gently with a spatula, just until no white streaks remain.

“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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