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Dessert

Velvet Cake

A light, fluffy cake made with butter, powdered sugar, flour, eggs, cold water, baking soda, cream of tartar, and optional flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Velvet 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream the butter and powdered sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Sift together the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, alternating with the cold water. Mix until smooth and well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

  3. Add fruit and spices if desired, or bake as a chocolate cake by using chocolate in the batter.

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

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

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich texture.
Powdered sugar
Creaming with butter helps create a light, fluffy structure and adds sweetness.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and help bind the batter as it sets in the oven.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidic ingredient that reacts with baking soda to help the cake rise and stay tender.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients, alternating with the cold water. Adding dry ingredients in portions and alternating with liquid keeps the batter smooth and evenly hydrated. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, which can make the cake tough.

“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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