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Dessert

French Cake

A sweet cake made with butter, flour, sugar, milk, eggs, and baking powder.

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

French 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.

Prepare

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

  2. Beat the egg yolks with the milk in a bowl.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff in another bowl.

  4. Cream the butter and sugar together in a large mixing bowl.

Make the batter

  1. Add the flour and baking powder to the butter mixture.

  2. Mix in the yolk and milk mixture.

  3. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  4. Pour the batter into a dripping pan.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until golden.

  2. Once cooled, cut the cake into squares.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Eggs
Egg whites trapped by folding add lift, and yolks add richness and structure.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add tenderness and fat for flavour.
Sugar
Creamed with butter for a tender crumb and adds sweetness and browning.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise in the oven.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and hydrates the flour to form the batter.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only while whipped, so vigorous stirring deflates them and the cake rises less. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles intact for a light texture.

“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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