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Dessert

Good for a Dessert

A simple cake made with eggs, sugar, flour, baking soda, milk, and cream of tartar, finished with a warm flavored cornstarch glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Good for a Dessert

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

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until light and fluffy.

  2. Gradually add the flour, baking soda, milk, and cream of tartar, mixing until smooth.

  3. Divide the batter between two pie plates.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden and a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Once cooled, split the cakes and spread with warm flavored corn starch.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Whisked with sugar, they trap air that gives the cake its light, airy structure.
Flour
Its proteins and starches set during baking to form the cake's main structure.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidic ingredients to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
An acid that stabilizes the egg foam and works with baking soda to help the cake rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps hold air in the beaten eggs for a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Beating the eggs and sugar until light and fluffy. Air whipped into the eggs is what lifts the batter during baking. Under-beaten eggs produce a dense cake, so the mixture should look pale and thick before the flour is added.

“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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