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Dessert

Feather Cake

A light, airy cake made with butter, sugar, milk, baking soda, flour, cream of tartar, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Feather Cake

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 ↓

Feather Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk and add it to the mixture, beating well.

  3. Sift the flour and cream of tartar together, then add to the mixture.

  4. Beat in the yolks of the eggs.

  5. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff, then fold them into the batter.

  6. Add the remaining flour and mix well.

Bake

  1. Grease two medium-sized cake pans and pour in the batter.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 20 minutes to 1 hour.

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.

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.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Whipped whites trap air, giving the cake its light, feathery crumb, while yolks add richness.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter and stabilizes the whipped egg whites, helping them hold their volume.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to release carbon dioxide, causing the cake to rise.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add fat for a tender texture and flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps build a fine, even crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.

The step that matters

Folding in the stiff egg whites. Whites must be beaten until stiff but folded in gently, since overmixing deflates the air that gives the cake its light texture.

“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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