Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓
White Layer 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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
Cream together the sugar and butter in a mixing bowl.
Add the milk and mix well.
Stir in 1 cup of flour and beat until smooth.
Add the egg whites and mix until combined.
Gradually add the remaining flour and mix until just combined.
Bake
Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Granulated sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender, aerated crumb when creamed with butter.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and tenderness, and traps air when creamed with sugar.
- Milk
- Provides moisture and hydrates the flour so the batter can form structure.
- Egg whites
- Add structure and help the cake set as it bakes.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
The step that matters
Gradually add the remaining flour and mix until just combined. Once flour meets liquid, gluten develops with mixing. Mixing only until combined keeps the crumb tender rather than tough and dense.
“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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