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A simple cake made with eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder, and cold water, baked in pie pans and served with cream.

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 ↓

Cakes

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, mix the flour with the baking powder.

Make the batter

  1. In another bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until well combined.

  2. Add the flour mixture to the egg mixture, then stir in the cold water.

  3. Pour the batter into two pie pans.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in the preheated oven until golden.

  2. Split the cake while hot and spread with cream.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Egg and flour 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

Eggs
Whisked with sugar to trap air, giving the cake its light structure.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its starch sets in the oven.
White sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the eggs hold air while beating.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the cake to rise and become airy.
Cold water
Adds moisture to the batter, loosening it for even spreading in the pans.

The step that matters

Split the cake while hot. Cutting the cake while still hot keeps its crumb soft and prevents it from tearing or crumbling. Once cooled, the layers become firmer and harder to separate cleanly.

“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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