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 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 the batter
Cream together the powdered sugar and butter.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff.
Dissolve the baking soda and cream of tartar in the sweet milk.
Add the milk mixture to the creamed butter and sugar.
Gradually mix in the flour until well combined.
Fold in the beaten egg whites and add lemon flavoring.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick comes out clean.
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.
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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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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 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
- Egg whites
- Beaten until stiff, they trap air that lifts the cake and gives it a light crumb.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake's rise once baked.
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender texture.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps create a fine, tender crumb when creamed with butter.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid from cream of tartar and milk to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the milk mixture, activating the baking soda and helping stabilize the egg whites.
The step that matters
Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when beaten until stiff. Overmixing or stirring vigorously while folding deflates them, so the cake bakes up dense instead of light.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, milk, cream, flour):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, milk, cream, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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