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Dessert

Delicate Cake

A light cake with marshmallow filling made from gelatin and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Delicate Cake

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 ↓

Delicate Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cake

  1. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the milk.

  2. Add sifted flour with baking powder and mix thoroughly.

  3. Gently fold in the whipped egg whites.

  4. Divide the batter into 3 layers.

  5. Bake until golden.

Make the filling

  1. Dissolve the gelatin in boiling water.

  2. Pour the gelatin over the powdered sugar.

  3. Beat for 30 minutes.

  4. Flavor the filling to taste.

  5. Let it stand until it begins to thicken.

Assemble

  1. Spread the filling between the cake layers.

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.

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.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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
Creams with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender crumb and rich flavor.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in to add lift and a light, airy texture.
Granulated gelatin
Sets the filling so it holds its shape between the cake layers.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves easily and gives the filling a smooth, sweet body.

The step that matters

Fold in the whipped egg whites gently. Egg white foam holds air that gives the cake its lift. Stirring vigorously deflates the foam, leaving a dense, flat cake.

“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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