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Dessert

Perfection Cake

A cake made with sugar, flour, butter, milk, corn starch, egg whites, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Perfection 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

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.

  2. Dissolve the cornstarch in the milk and add it to the butter and sugar mixture.

  3. Sift the flour with the baking powder and gradually add it to the mixture.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites to stiff peaks and gently fold them into the batter.

  5. Do not mix in a tin dish.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

Flour
Provides the main structure that sets the crumb of the cake.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that lightens the batter and helps it rise.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, contributing to a tender texture and flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, when creamed with butter, helps trap air for a lighter crumb.
Cornstarch (in the method)
Softens the flour's gluten, giving the cake a finer, more tender crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the cake to rise and become light.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped egg whites hold the cake's air, so they must be folded in gently. Vigorous stirring deflates the foam, leaving a dense, flat cake.

“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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