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Dessert

White Cake

A light, fluffy white cake with a sweet nut filling made from egg, milk, sugar, cornstarch, vanilla, and nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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White Cake

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

White 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.

Make the cake

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the milk and beaten egg whites, mixing well.

  4. Sift together the baking powder and flour, then gradually add to the mixture.

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

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, boil the beaten egg, milk, sugar, and cornstarch until thickened.

  2. Remove from heat, then stir in vanilla and chopped nuts.

Assemble

  1. Once the cake is cool, fill and frost with the prepared filling.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  3. Vanilla + nutstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together638 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Creams with the sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, fine-grained crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake's shape as it bakes.
Egg whites
Add structure and lift to the batter as they set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, making the cake rise.
Cornstarch
Thickens the filling as it boils, giving it a spreadable body.

The step that matters

Boil the filling until thickened. Cornstarch only thickens fully when the mixture reaches a boil and is kept stirring, so stopping early leaves a runny filling. The egg in the filling must be cooked through, which the boil also ensures.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, egg, flour, vanilla):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, egg, flour, vanilla. 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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