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 ↓
Delicious 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 your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
In a bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until creamy.
Add the egg yolks and mix well, then fold in the beaten egg whites.
Dissolve the baking soda in the milk.
Mix the cream of tartar with the flour, then combine with the butter mixture and milk.
Flavor the batter with lemon or vanilla extract to taste.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake until golden.
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.
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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 + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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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).
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
- Yolks enrich the batter and whites, beaten and folded in, add lightness and structure as the cake sets.
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and tender texture.
- Flour
- Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps create a light crumb.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
- Cream of tartar
- Acts as an acid that works with the baking soda to help the cake rise and stabilizes the whites.
The step that matters
Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when whipped and gently folded in. Vigorous stirring deflates them, which leads to a dense cake with less rise.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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