Why it works: Sugar and spread match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 260 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Sugar Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Make the batter
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Gradually add flour until the batter is thin enough to spread on tin sheets.
Bake and cut
Spread the batter on the prepared sheets and sprinkle with coarse white sugar.
Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.
Cut into square pieces while still warm.
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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Sugar + spreadtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together260 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + spreadtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together270 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich texture.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps it brown as it bakes.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, setting the thin batter as it bakes.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that sets the batter into a cake once baked.
The step that matters
Gradually add flour until the batter is thin enough to spread. Too much flour makes the batter stiff and dense, so it will not spread thinly on the sheets. Adding it slowly lets you stop once the batter reaches a spreadable thinness.
“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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