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Dessert

Lady Cake

A light cake made with egg whites, sifted flour, sugar, butter, buttermilk or sour cream, cream of tartar, baking soda, and bitter almond flavoring.

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 ↓

Lady 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 egg whites and flour alternately to the mixture.

  3. Pour in the buttermilk or sour cream.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in a little warm water and add it to the batter just before baking.

  5. Flavor the batter with bitter almond.

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

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

  3. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (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 egg whites add structure and lightness to the cake's crumb.
Flour
Flour forms the cake's main structure once it sets in the oven.
Sugar
Sugar creams with the butter for a light texture and adds sweetness.
Butter
Butter creamed with sugar traps air and adds fat for a tender texture.
Buttermilk or sour cream
Adds moisture and acidity, giving a tender crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic dairy to help the cake rise and brown.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda just before baking. Baking soda starts reacting with the acidic buttermilk or sour cream as soon as it is mixed in. Adding it at the last moment keeps that rising power from fading before the cake reaches the oven, so the cake rises properly.

“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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