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Dessert

White Mountain Cake

A coconut-flavored cake with a frosted coconut topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and coconut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 306 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

White Mountain 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.

Make the batter

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

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the beaten egg whites and sweet milk, mixing well.

  4. Sift together the flour, corn starch, and baking powder.

  5. Fold the sifted dry ingredients into the wet mixture.

  6. Pour the batter into jelly‑cake tins.

Bake and frost

  1. Bake until golden.

  2. Beat the frosting egg whites with some sugar until not quite stiff.

  3. Spread the frosting over the cake.

  4. Add grated coconut to the frosting.

  5. Layer the cakes together.

  6. Top with additional coconut or frosting.

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. Corn + coconuttop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together306 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

  4. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites beaten into the batter add structure and lift to the crumb as they set in the oven.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and adds richness and a tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps give it a fine, tender crumb.
Corn starch
Lightens the flour blend, giving the cake a softer, more tender texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.

The step that matters

Beat the frosting egg whites with some sugar until not quite stiff.. Egg whites over-beaten into stiff, dry peaks become grainy and hard to spread. Stopping at a soft, glossy stage keeps the frosting smooth and spreadable.

Swap the coconut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, milk, flour, corn):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Coconutthe original
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, milk, flour, corn. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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