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Dessert

Silver Cake

A light, fluffy cake made with sugar, butter, flour, milk, baking soda, cream of tartar, egg whites, and optional almond extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Silver 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 the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the milk, flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar; mix well.

  3. Whisk the egg whites until frothy and gently fold them into the batter.

  4. If desired, add a few drops of almond extract for flavor.

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped to foam, they add lift and a light, airy crumb to the batter.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Sugar
Creamed with butter, it sweetens the cake and helps create a fine, soft texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter and stabilizes the egg white foam while helping the cake rise.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when whipped to frothy foam; overmixing or stirring vigorously when folding deflates the foam and the cake comes out dense rather than light.

“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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