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Dessert

Yellow Layer Cake

A light, fluffy yellow cake made with sugar, butter, milk, flour, corn starch, baking powder, eggs, and flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Yellow 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. 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.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

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

  2. Add the milk and mix well.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, corn starch, and baking powder.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until smooth.

  5. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  6. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter.

  7. Add flavoring to taste.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake for 25-30 minutes or 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.

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. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. 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

Eggs
Whipped whites trap air that gives the cake its light, airy structure.
Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and adds richness and a tender crumb.
Flour
Its proteins form the gluten network that gives the cake its main structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, when creamed with butter, helps incorporate air into the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas as it reacts in the batter, lifting the cake as it bakes.
Corn starch
Dilutes the flour's gluten, producing a softer, more delicate crumb.

The step that matters

Gently fold the egg whites into the batter. The whipped whites hold the air that lightens the cake. Vigorous stirring knocks that air out, leaving a dense, flat result, so fold just until no white streaks remain.

“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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