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Dessert

Plain Layer Cake

A simple butter, sugar, milk, egg, baking powder, and flour cake baked in layers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Plain Layer Cake

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 ↓

Plain Layer 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 the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, rub together the butter and sugar.

  3. Add the beaten egg and milk, mixing well.

  4. Stir the baking powder into a small amount of flour, then add it to the mixture, stirring quickly.

  5. Add enough more flour to create a thick batter that holds its shape.

Bake and assemble

  1. Divide the batter into three well-buttered cake pans.

  2. Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

  3. Use your preferred filling between the layers.

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. 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

Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps give the cake a tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps brown the crust while creaming with butter.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake and makes the batter hold its shape.

The step that matters

Stirring the baking powder in quickly. Baking powder starts releasing gas once it is wet, so the batter should be mixed promptly and baked soon after. Waiting lets much of the rising power escape, which can leave the layers flat and dense.

“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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