Skip to main content
Dessert

Favorite Snow Cake

A light, fluffy cake made with butter, flour, corn starch, sweet milk, baking powder, egg whites, sugar, and flavoring.

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

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 ↓

Favorite Snow 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.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter until creamy.

  2. Stir in the flour until well combined.

  3. Add the corn starch and sweet milk with dissolved baking powder; mix thoroughly.

Fold and bake

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites and sugar together until fluffy.

  2. Fold the egg mixture into the batter gently.

  3. Add flavoring to taste.

  4. Bake in sheets at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

Finish

  1. Cool and layer with icing.

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

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

  4. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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
Adds richness and a tender crumb through its fat content.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Corn starch
Softens the crumb, giving a lighter, more delicate texture than flour alone.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Egg whites
Whipped with sugar, they trap air that lifts the batter and sets the structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and stabilizes the whipped egg whites.

The step that matters

Folding the egg mixture into the batter. Whipped egg whites hold air that gives lift. Stirring them vigorously deflates the foam, leaving a dense cake, so fold gently with a wide motion until just combined.

“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.

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesCorn CakeCorn Cake90 recipesCorn Starch CakeCorn Starch Cake89 recipesCorn CakesCorn Cakes22 recipes