Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
Silver 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 the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Make the batter
Add the sweet milk and mix well.
Sift together the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda, then gradually add to the butter mixture.
Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.
Add lemon flavoring to taste and mix until just combined.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 25-30 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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Milk + buttertop 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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter 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
- Beaten to stiff peaks, they trap air that lifts the cake and gives it a light crumb.
- Flour
- Forms the structure that holds the cake's rise once baked.
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender texture.
- Sugar
- Creamed with butter to add sweetness and help create a fine, soft crumb.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter and stabilizes the beaten egg whites, helping them hold their volume.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
The step that matters
Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stirring too hard deflates the air bubbles in the whites, so the cake bakes up dense instead of light. Fold gently, just until no white streaks remain.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, flour, milk, butter, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour, milk, butter, 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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