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Dessert

White Mountain Cake

A light cake made with sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg whites, and baking powder, topped with a sugar‑water icing flavored with vanilla and lemon syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

White Mountain 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.

Make the cake

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add milk and mix well.

  4. Gradually add flour and baking powder, mixing until smooth.

  5. Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently fold them into the batter.

  6. Pour batter into a greased cake pan and bake 25–30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make the icing

  1. For the icing, combine sugar and water in a saucepan and boil until ready to turn.

  2. Pour the hot syrup over the beaten egg whites, mixing until well combined.

  3. Add vanilla and lemon syrup to the icing and mix until smooth.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure once mixed with the liquids and egg whites.
Egg whites
Beaten to stiff peaks, they lighten the batter and add structure as they set.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps create a light texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stirring vigorously knocks out the air whipped into the whites, leaving a dense cake. Fold gently with a spatula so the batter stays light and rises well.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg, vanilla, syrup):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg, vanilla, syrup. 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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