Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Puff 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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a mixing bowl, combine sugar, flour, eggs, cold water, baking powder, and salt.
Mix until smooth and well combined.
Pour the batter into sponge cake pans.
Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Make the custard
Cook the custard filling by heating 1 cup milk, 1 tablespoon corn starch, 1 egg, and a pinch of salt until thickened.
Assemble and serve
Split each cake open with a knife and fill with the custard, ensuring it doesn't spill out.
Optionally, ice with chocolate dressing for extra flavor.
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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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).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
- Eggs
- Provide structure and lift as they set in the batter, giving the cake its body.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the cake as it bakes and sets.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps it brown as it bakes.
The step that matters
Heating the custard until thickened. Corn starch thickens only when heated enough for its granules to swell and set, so stopping early leaves a runny filling that can spill out when the cake is split and filled.
“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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