Name: One-two-three-four Cake
Ingredients: 1 cup butter; 2 cups sugar; 5 eggs (or 4 at low altitude); 2 tablespoons milk; 4 teaspoons baking powder; 4 teaspoons coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); about 1½ cups flour

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 ↓

One-two-three-four 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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add the beaten eggs and mix well.
Sift the baking powder and salt with part of the flour, then add to the mixture.
Stir in the milk and the remaining flour until combined.

Bake

Pour the batter into small cake pans or a loaf pan.
Bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted 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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 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

Butter: Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar: Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, airy texture when creamed with butter.
Eggs: Add structure and moisture, and help bind the batter.
Flour: Forms the cake's structure as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.

The step that matters

Creaming the butter and sugar. Beating them until light and fluffy traps air bubbles that expand in the oven. Under-creaming leaves a dense cake, while the batter should be mixed only until combined after the flour goes in, since overmixing develops gluten and toughens the crumb.

“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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One-two-three-four Cake