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 ↓
Lily 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
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
In a bowl, beat together the corn starch, sweet milk, baking soda, and cream of tartar.
Add the sugar and butter, and mix until well combined.
Fold in the egg whites and flour gently.
Flavor the mixture with lemon to your taste.
Bake
Pour the batter into two loaf pans.
Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + corntop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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
- Egg whites
- Whipped air and structure that help the cake rise and hold its crumb.
- Flour
- Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
- Butter
- Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavor.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps keep it moist and tender while browning.
- Corn starch
- Softens the crumb, giving a finer, more tender texture than flour alone.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the batter.
The step that matters
Folding in the egg whites. Egg whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Folding gently keeps that air in; vigorous stirring deflates the batter and produces a denser cake.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, corn, flour, egg, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, corn, flour, egg, cream. 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.
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