Name: Layer Cake
Ingredients: 2 cups sugar; ½ cup butter, creamed; 1 cup sweet milk; 2 cups flour; ¼ cup corn-starch; 3 teaspoons baking powder; Whites of 6 eggs

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 ↓

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 the batter

Sift corn-starch, flour, and baking powder together several times for thorough mixing.
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add the sweet milk and mix well.
Gradually add the sifted dry ingredients to the mixture.
Fold in the egg whites gently at the end.

Bake

Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake at 350°F (175°C) 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.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,955 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,165 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

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

Butter: Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Flour: Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter, causing the cake to rise.
Egg whites: Folded in to add lift and a light, airy texture.
Sugar: Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender crumb when creamed with butter.