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 ↓
Gold 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare the batter
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a mixing bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
Add the sweet milk and mix well.
In a separate bowl, combine the cream of tartar, baking soda, and nutmeg.
Gradually add the dry mixture to the wet ingredients, alternating with flour until you achieve a smooth batter.
Fold in the egg yolks until fully incorporated.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps give it a light, tender crumb.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and tenderness, and creaming it traps air that helps the cake rise.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake together as the batter sets in the oven.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness, colour and fat, and help bind and set the crumb.
- Cream of tartar
- Acts as an acid that reacts with baking soda to produce gas, helping the cake rise.
The step that matters
Gradually adding the dry mixture with the flour. Adding dry ingredients in alternating portions and mixing only until smooth keeps the batter evenly combined. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, which can make the cake tough.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, cream, flour, egg):
- Nutmegthe original
- Cinnamonfits about as well
- Capersfits less well
- Jalapenofits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, cream, flour, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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