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Dessert

White Layer Cake

A light, white cake made with butter, sugar, milk, flour, baking powder, and whipped egg whites, baked in layers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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White Layer Cake

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 Layer Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sift the baking powder through the flour two or three times.

  2. Whip the egg whites to a stiff froth.

  3. Cream the butter and sugar together.

Make the batter

  1. Add half of the milk and flour, beating thoroughly.

  2. Add the remaining milk and flour, then beat in the whipped egg whites.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in layer tins until golden brown.

  2. Let cool before spreading with your choice of filling.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. 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. Flour + eggtop 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Egg whites
Whipped to a foam, they trap air that lifts and lightens the crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cake rise and become tender.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds fat that gives a tender, rich texture.
Sugar
Creamed with butter, it sweetens the cake and helps browning.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and keeps the crumb soft.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Beating the whites too hard or too long makes them dry and clumpy, and overmixing deflates the air they hold. Gentle folding keeps the batter light so the cake rises evenly.

“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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