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Dessert

Favorite Snow-cake

A sweet cake made with butter, flour, corn starch, sweet milk, baking powder, egg whites, sugar, and flavoring, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Favorite Snow-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 batter

  1. Cream the butter in a large bowl.

  2. Stir in the flour until well combined.

  3. Add the corn starch and mix thoroughly.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the sweet milk and baking powder, then add to the mixture.

  5. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gradually add the sugar, continuing to beat until well combined.

  6. Fold the egg white mixture into the batter gently.

  7. Add flavoring to taste.

Bake and assemble

  1. Pour the batter into baking sheets and bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

  2. Once cooled, layer the cakes with icing.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that gives the cake its light, airy crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing it to rise during baking.
Butter
Creamed to add richness and a tender texture to the crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure of the cake once it sets in the oven.
Corn starch
Softens the crumb and makes the cake more tender than flour alone.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps stabilize the whipped egg whites.

The step that matters

Folding the egg white mixture into the batter. Whipped egg whites hold the air that lifts the cake. Stirring vigorously or folding too long deflates them, leading to 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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