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Dessert

Genoese Cake

A light cake made with eggs, caster sugar, butter, and flour, baked at 350°F for 50 minutes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Genoese Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Line a cake tin with buttered paper.

Make the batter

  1. In a basin, combine the eggs and caster sugar, then place over a pan of hot water and whisk until creamy.

  2. Melt the butter and gently stir it into the egg mixture, alternating with the flour.

  3. Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin.

Bake

  1. Bake for 50 minutes in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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
Whisked with sugar to trap air, giving the cake its light, airy structure.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps whisk the eggs into a stable, creamy foam.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and carries flavor through the crumb.
Flour
Provides the starch and gluten network that sets the cake's structure as it bakes.

The step that matters

Whisking the eggs and sugar over hot water. Gentle warmth helps the sugar dissolve and the eggs foam more readily, producing more volume. Overheating can scramble the eggs, so the water should stay hot, not boiling, and the mixture should be whisked until thick and creamy.

“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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