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Dessert

Corn Starch Cakes

A sweet cake made with corn starch, butter, sugar, eggs, milk, flour, baking powder, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and milk 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 ↓

Corn Starch Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA good hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good hot 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 the brown sugar and mix well.

  3. Incorporate the egg whites one at a time, then add the vanilla.

  4. Sift the baking powder into the cornstarch and mix it into the batter by hand.

Bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Spoon 1 teaspoon of the mixture into small round muffin tins.

  3. Bake until golden, ensuring not to beat the mixture with a spoon.

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. Vanilla + milktop 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. Vanilla + flourtop 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

Cornstarch
Gives the cakes a tender, light crumb with little gluten structure.
Egg whites
Add structure and lift as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cakes brown.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cakes rise.

The step that matters

Mixing the batter by hand and not beating it. Overbeating develops air and structure unevenly and can deflate the batter, making cakes dense or collapsed. Gentle folding keeps the light texture the cornstarch and egg whites provide.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, milk, flour. 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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