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Dessert

Peize White Cup Cake

A light, fluffy white cake made with butter, flour, sugar, sour milk, baking soda, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Peize White Cup 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).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks until light, then add the sugar and mix well.

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

  3. Add the beaten egg whites to the yolk mixture, alternating with the flour.

  4. In another bowl, mix the sour milk with the baking soda.

  5. Combine the milk mixture with the batter, mixing slowly.

  6. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

Bake

  1. Bake for 30-40 minutes, checking with a straw or knife for doneness.

  2. Use flavoring to taste.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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).

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

Eggs
Whipped whites trap air for lift, while yolks add richness and structure to the crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb once the batter sets in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavour in the crumb.
White sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep the crumb moist and tender.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise and adds moisture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to release gas that leavens the batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whites beaten to stiff peaks hold the air that lifts the cake. Overmixing or deflating them while combining with the flour and yolks makes the cake dense and flat.

“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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