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Dessert

Plain Cake

A simple cake made with butter, sugar, milk, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Plain Cake

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 ↓

Plain Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.

  3. Add the eggs and mix well.

  4. Stir in the milk.

Make the batter

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the flour with the baking soda and cream of tartar.

  2. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture.

  3. Pour the batter into shallow pans, about 1 inch deep.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until golden and a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Serve warm.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  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
Adds fat and richness, and helps give the cake a tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown during baking.
Eggs
Add structure and binding as they set during baking.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins and starches set.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Provides acidity that reacts with baking soda, helping the cake rise.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding the flour mixture gradually and mixing only until combined keeps the batter smooth. Overmixing develops gluten, which can make the cake tough and dense.

“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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