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 ↓
A Cheap 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
Mix sugar, flour, and baking powder in a dish.
In a cup, combine egg whites with melted butter until the cup is half full.
Fill the cup with sweet milk and add flavoring to taste.
Pour this mixture into the dish with the dry ingredients and beat for twenty minutes.
Bake
Bake in a solid oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.
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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the structure that holds the cake's shape as it bakes.
- Egg whites
- Add structure and help trap air so the cake rises and stays light.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the wet batter and in the oven, making the cake rise.
- Melted butter
- Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps give it a tender, browned crumb.
- Sweet milk
- Supplies moisture that hydrates the flour and dissolves the sugar.
The step that matters
Beating the batter for twenty minutes. Long beating develops gluten in the flour, which can make the cake tough and dense. Baking powder starts releasing gas once it is wet, so the batter should go into the oven without delay to keep its rise.
“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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