Name: Silver Cake
Ingredients: 2 cups sugar; 1 cup butter; 3 cups flour; ½ cup milk; 8 egg whites; 1 teaspoon cream of tartar; ½ teaspoon baking soda; almond extract (to taste); rose extract (to taste)

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 ↓

Silver 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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
Add the egg whites and mix well.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, alternating with the milk.
Flavor the batter with almond and rose extracts.

Bake

Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick 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.

Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,673 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter: Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Egg whites: Add structure and lift to the batter as the cake sets in the oven.
Flour: Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Cream of tartar: Stabilizes the egg whites and helps the cake keep a light, fine texture.
Baking soda: Reacts with acidic ingredients to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Sugar: Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, airy texture when creamed with butter.

“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.