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Dessert

Layer Cake

A butter and lemon cake with rose water, coconut, and walnut decoration, layered with a powdered sugar icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Layer Cake

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 ↓

Layer Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter in a bowl.

  2. Add lemon juice and egg yolks, then beat until smooth.

  3. Fold in the egg whites, one quarter at a time.

  4. Mix in the milk and rose water.

  5. Sift together flour, cornstarch, and baking powder, then add to the mixture.

Bake and ice

  1. Pour into a jelly cake pan and bake at 400°F (200°C) until light brown.

  2. For the icing, boil powdered sugar and water until cool, then add egg whites and vanilla sugar.

  3. Layer the cake with icing and sprinkle grated coconut between layers and on top.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter
Creamed with sugar-free base to add richness and a tender crumb.
Egg yolks
Add richness, fat and colour to the batter.
Egg whites
Folded in to lighten the batter and help it rise and set structure.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as it sets in the oven.
Cornstarch
Softens the crumb, giving a more tender texture than flour alone.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises in the oven.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the whites. Stirring hard knocks that air out, so the cake rises less and turns dense.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, milk, rose, flour, sugar, vanilla):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, milk, rose, flour, sugar, vanilla. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

More layer cake recipes

Chocolate 44White 23Fruit 18Orange 16Fig 12Coconut 11 See all 133 →

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