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 ↓
White Mountain 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.
Make the cake
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add the sweet milk and mix well.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder, then gradually add to the wet mixture.
Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form and gently fold them into the batter.
Pour the batter into greased jelly tins and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.
Make the icing
For the icing, boil ½ cup of water and 3 cups of sugar until thick and threads form when dropped from a spoon.
Slowly pour the hot syrup over the beaten egg whites and beat until cool.
Assemble and finish
Spread the icing between the layers of cake and top with grated coconut.
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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,648 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,467 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 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
- Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavour.
- Egg whites
- Whipped to stiff peaks, they add airy lift and structure to the batter and the icing.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas when heated, helping the cake rise and become light.
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and, cooked into syrup, forms the thick icing.
The step that matters
Pour the hot syrup over the egg whites. The syrup must be thick and hot but poured slowly while beating, so it cooks the whites into a glossy, stable icing. Pouring too fast or letting the syrup cool can cause it to set unevenly or stay runny.
Swap the coconut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits about as well
- Coconutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg. 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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