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Dessert

Silver and Gold Cake

A two-layer cake with a silver (egg white) layer and a gold (egg yolk) layer.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Silver and Gold 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batters

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

  2. Beat the egg whites in a bowl until stiff peaks form.

  3. Cream together the butter and sugar in another bowl until light and fluffy.

  4. Add the milk or water, flour, baking powder, and flavoring to the butter mixture, mixing well.

  5. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  6. Beat the egg yolks for the gold layer and mix with sugar, sifted flour, butter, water or milk, and flavoring.

Bake

  1. Pour the silver batter into a greased cake pan, followed by the gold batter on top.

  2. Bake for 30–40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they give the silver layer its lift and airy structure.
Egg yolks
They add richness, colour and tenderness to the gold layer.
Flour
Its proteins set during baking to give the cake its structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, it adds tenderness and flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, creamed texture with the butter.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Stiff egg whites hold air that gives the silver layer its lift. Vigorous stirring knocks that air out, leaving a denser cake.

“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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