Name: Snowball Cake
Ingredients: ½ cup butter; 3 teaspoons baking powder; 1 cup sweet milk; Whites of 5 eggs; Freshly grated coconut for rolling

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 ↓

Snowball 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.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

Cream the butter and add baking powder and sweet milk.
Fold in the egg whites gently.
Pour the batter into a deep square tin and bake until golden.

Cut and coat

Let the cake cool, then cut it into 2‑inch squares, trimming the edges to make them white.
Cut off the corners to round the pieces.
Using a fork, frost all sides of each piece and roll them in grated coconut.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,648 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,467 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Adds richness and a tender, fine crumb through creaming.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and stays light.
Sweet milk: Provides the liquid that hydrates the batter and helps form its structure.
Egg whites: Add air and structure, helping the cake rise and hold its shape.
Freshly grated coconut: Forms the outer coating, adding texture and a fresh, sweet flavor.