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Dessert

Perfection Cake

A light, fluffy cake made with butter, sugar, milk, flour, and egg whites, flavored with vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Perfection Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Dissolve the cornstarch in ½ cup of the milk and add it to the butter and sugar mixture.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the remaining milk and add it to the mixture.

  4. Add the flour and beat well until combined.

  5. Sift in the cream of tartar with a little of the flour and mix.

  6. Add vanilla to taste.

  7. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared cake pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center 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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  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 + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Egg whites
Beaten and folded in, they trap air and give the cake its light, airy structure.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and adds richness and tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a fine, tender crumb when creamed with butter.
Cornstarch
Softens the crumb, giving a tender texture lighter than flour alone.
Cream of tartar
Stabilizes the whipped egg whites and adds a slight acidity to the batter.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when whipped; vigorous stirring deflates them, which leads to a dense, flat cake. Fold gently with a spatula until just combined.

“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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