Name: One-two-three-four Cake
Ingredients: 1 cup butter; 2 cups sugar; 5 eggs (or 4 eggs at low altitude); 2 tablespoons milk; 1 teaspoon baking powder; 1 teaspoon salt; 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.

Make the batter

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
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 just combined.

Bake

Bake in small cake pans or one loaf pan at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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 give a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs: Add structure and richness, and help bind the batter together.
Flour: Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises in the oven.
Sugar: Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, aerated texture when creamed.

The step that matters

Stir in the milk and remaining flour until just combined. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form. Overmixing at this stage can make the cake tough and dense, so stop as soon as no dry 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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One-two-three-four Cake