Skip to main content
Dessert

Fairy Loaf Cake

A light, airy cake made with eggs, sugar, butter, milk, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and flavoring.

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

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 ↓

Fairy Loaf Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Beat the eggs separately, with yolks and whites in different bowls.

  3. Sift the flour once, then measure it, add baking soda, and sift three times.

  4. Cream the butter and sugar together thoroughly.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the yolks to a stiff froth and stir them into the butter mixture.

  2. Whip the egg whites to a foam, add cream of tartar, and whip until very stiff.

  3. Add the milk to the mixture, then fold in the whipped egg whites.

  4. Gradually add the flour and flavoring, stirring vigorously.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared pan and bake for 30 to 50 minutes.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Eggs
Yolks add richness and structure, while whipped whites lift the batter and give it air.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Granulated sugar
Creamed with butter, it helps create a fine texture and adds sweetness and browning.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as the batter bakes.
Cream of tartar
Stabilizes the whipped egg whites so they hold their volume longer.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidic ingredients to release gas, helping the cake rise.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Whites hold air only when whipped to a stiff foam. Overmixing or stirring them in vigorously deflates the foam, leading to a dense cake instead of a light, risen one.

“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

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes