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Dessert

Silver Cake

A light almond or rose flavored cake made with butter, sugar, flour, corn starch, baking soda, cream of tartar, milk, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Silver 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.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

  2. In another bowl, mix the flour, corn starch, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  3. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, alternating with the milk.

  4. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites and flavoring.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake until the cake shrinks from the sides of the pan.

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. Corn + almondtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together485 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the cake a tender crumb and flavor.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Corn starch
Softens the crumb, giving a finer, more tender texture than flour alone.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter and stabilizes the beaten egg whites, helping them hold their volume.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas, helping the cake rise.
Whites of 6 eggs
Beaten into foam, they lighten the batter and help the cake rise and set.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the beaten egg whites. Egg white foam traps air that gives the cake its lift. Stirring vigorously knocks out this air and produces a dense, flat cake, so the whites should be folded in gently 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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