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Dessert

White Mountain Cake

A coconut layered cake made with sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg whites, baking powder, and icing of egg whites and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

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 your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the sweet milk and mix well.

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

  5. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently fold them into the batter.

  6. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Ice and assemble

  1. For the icing, beat the egg whites until frothy, then gradually add the pulverized sugar, mixing until smooth.

  2. Spread the icing between the layers of cake, and sprinkle coconut in between and on top.

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

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

  2. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

  3. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Eggs
Whipped whites add air and structure, helping the cake rise and set light.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, making the cake rise in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown while tenderizing the crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stiff whites hold the air that lightens the batter. Stirring them in vigorously knocks that air out, leaving a denser cake, so fold gently with a spatula until just combined.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, 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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