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Dessert

Gold Cake

A buttery, sweet cake with lemon, vanilla, and almond flavors, baked in a loaf pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Gold Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and gradually add the sugar.

  2. Beat the whole egg and egg yolks until light.

  3. Add the extracts one at a time, beating well after each addition.

  4. Alternate adding the milk and flour, which has been sifted with the baking powder, and beat quickly.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into an oblong loaf pan and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 25 to 35 minutes.

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. Vanilla + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps hold air when creamed with the butter.
Eggs
Provide structure as they set, and the yolks add richness and moisture.
Milk
Adds moisture and combines with the flour to form the batter.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.

The step that matters

Alternate adding the milk and flour, then beat quickly. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form. Mixing too long or too vigorously toughens the crumb, so the batter should be beaten only briefly after the flour and milk are combined.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, vanilla, almond, milk, flour):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, vanilla, almond, milk, 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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