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Dessert

Starch Cake

A sweet cake made with starch, flour, butter, sugar, egg whites, baking powder, and flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Starch 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

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

  2. Dissolve the starch in sweet milk.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

  2. Add the dissolved starch to the butter‑sugar mixture. Mix the mixture well.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  4. Fold the egg whites into the mixture gently.

  5. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

  6. Gradually add the sifted dry ingredients to the mixture.

  7. Add flavoring to taste. Mix until just combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 30‑40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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. Milk + buttertop 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

Eggs
Whipped whites trap air, giving the cake lift and a light, airy crumb.
Starch
Starch absorbs moisture and sets during baking, giving the cake a tender, fine texture.
Butter
Fat coats flour particles and creams with sugar, adding richness and a tender crumb.
Flour
Flour provides the main structure as its proteins and starches set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the batter rise in the oven.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped whites are full of trapped air that the batter relies on for lift. Stirring them in vigorously knocks that air out, so the cake comes out dense; fold gently with a spatula until just combined.

“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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