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Dessert

Gold and Silver Cakes

Two cakes made from egg yolk and egg white mixtures, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Gold and Silver Cakes

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.

Prepare the gold batter

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the yolks of 8 eggs with 1 cup sugar until well combined.

  3. Add ¾ cup butter, ½ cup sweet milk, and 2 cups flour sifted with 2 teaspoons baking powder. Mix until smooth.

Make the silver batter and bake

  1. For the silver cake, in another bowl, combine 2 cups fine sugar with ½ cup butter.

  2. Add 2½ cups flour, ¾ cup sweet milk, and the beaten whites of 8 eggs. Mix until smooth.

  3. Pour both mixtures into greased cake pans and bake until golden.

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 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

Egg yolks
Add richness, fat and colour to the gold batter, giving it a tender crumb.
Egg whites
Beaten whites add air and lift, so the silver cake rises light and open.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and moist texture in both batters.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that sets the crumb as the cakes bake.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the heat, helping the gold cake rise.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites. Whites must be beaten to stiff, airy foam before folding in; under-beaten whites give a dense cake, while over-beaten whites turn dry and grainy and collapse in the oven.

“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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