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Dessert

Rainbow Cakes

A simple cake with colored icing, cut into four pieces and arranged in rainbow order.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Rainbow Cakes

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 the batter

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

  2. Cream the margarine and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

  4. Sift in the flour and baking powder, and mix until just combined.

  5. Pour the batter onto a well-greased flat baking tray.

Bake and decorate

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

  2. Let the cake cool completely, then cut it into four equal pieces.

  3. Ice each piece with a different color: chocolate, white, pink, and orange.

  4. Cut the iced pieces into pointed shapes and arrange them alternately on a cake stand.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Margarine
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Castor sugar
Creams with the fat to hold air bubbles and adds sweetness and gentle browning.
Eggs
Add structure as they set and emulsify the batter, and contribute moisture and richness.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, making the cake rise and become light and airy.

The step that matters

Creaming the margarine and sugar. Beating until light and fluffy incorporates air that expands in the oven. Under-creaming leaves a dense cake, while over-mixing after the flour is added develops gluten and toughens the crumb.

“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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