Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Sunshine Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
Beat the egg yolks until smooth.
Make the batter
In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until frothy, then add cream of tartar and continue beating until very stiff.
Gently fold in the granulated sugar into the egg whites.
Thoroughly mix in the beaten egg yolks.
Sift in the flour and fold until just combined.
Bake
Pour the batter into a tube pan and bake for 35 to 50 minutes.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,481 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
- Egg whites
- Whipped to a stiff foam that gives the cake its light, airy structure.
- Cream of tartar
- Stabilizes the whipped egg whites so they hold their volume longer.
- Granulated sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps stabilize the whipped whites while keeping them glossy.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness, moisture and tenderness to the crumb.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the light starch structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
The step that matters
Folding the flour and yolks into the whites. Overmixing or deflating the stiff egg whites knocks out the air that makes the cake rise, so the flour should be sifted in and folded gently 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.
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