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Dessert

Corn-starch Cake

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter 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 ↓

Corn-starch 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.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter until creamy.

  2. Add the sugar and mix well.

  3. Incorporate the eggs and mix thoroughly.

  4. Sift together the flour, corn starch, and baking powder, then stir into the mixture.

  5. Beat the batter for five minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake immediately in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

  2. Once done, remove from the pan and place the cake on its side to prevent it from becoming heavy.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Corn starch
Gives the cake a tender, fine crumb and a light texture.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist texture.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and moisture as they set.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise.
Fine granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown lightly while baking.

The step that matters

Bake immediately after mixing. Baking powder starts releasing gas as soon as it gets wet and mixed, so the batter loses rising power if it waits. Baking right away keeps the lift the leavening provides.

“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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