Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Hot Water 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
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Beat the egg yolks with the sugar until creamy.
Sift the flour and baking powder together three times.
Make the batter
Add the flour mixture and the stiffly beaten egg whites to the yolk mixture.
Mix all ingredients together and add the boiling water last.
Flavor the batter to your taste.
Finish
Use the reserved egg whites to make frosting.
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.
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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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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
- Eggs
- Whipped whites give lift and an airy structure, while yolks add richness and tenderness.
- Flour
- Provides the starch and gluten network that gives the cake its structure.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps keep the crumb soft and tender.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise in the oven.
- Boiling water
- Adds moisture and thins the batter, helping produce a tender, light crumb.
The step that matters
Add the boiling water last. Boiling water thins the batter so it mixes evenly and cooks into a moist, tender crumb. Adding it too early, or stirring too long afterward, can deflate the whipped whites and make the cake tough or dense.
“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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