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Dessert

Feather Cake

A light cake made with sugar, eggs, butter, flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, water, and flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Feather Cake

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Feather 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. 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

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the sugar and beaten eggs until well combined.

  2. Add the softened butter and mix until smooth.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and cream of tartar.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in the water and add to the mixture.

  5. Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients, stirring until just combined.

  6. Add flavoring to taste.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 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
Provide structure and richness as they bind the batter and set during baking.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the cake tender and moist.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and richer flavor.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter and stabilizes the eggs for a lighter texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the cake rise.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour mixture. Once flour is added, overmixing develops gluten and can make the cake tough and dense. Stir only until just combined, leaving small lumps, so the texture stays light and tender.

“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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