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Dessert

Corn-Flour Cake

A baked cake made with corn flour, butter, sugar, flour, eggs, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Corn-Flour Cake

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. Rub the baking soda and cream of tartar to remove lumps.

  2. In a bowl, mix the corn-flour and flour.

Make the batter

  1. In a separate bowl, slightly heat the butter and beat it to a cream without oiling it.

  2. Gradually add the sugar, corn-flour, and flour to the butter, moistening with egg yolks as needed.

  3. Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold them into the mixture.

Bake

  1. Line a cake tin with greased paper, pour in the batter, and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 40 minutes.

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 + 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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
Egg whites whipped to stiff peaks trap air, giving the cake lift and a light crumb.
Butter
Beaten to a cream, it traps air and adds richness and a tender texture.
Corn-flour
Provides the cornmeal character and body of the cake's structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the butter hold air when beaten.
Flour
Adds structure so the cake holds its shape after baking.
Cream of tartar
Stabilises the whipped egg whites so they hold their stiff peaks.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Stiff whites hold the air that lifts the batter. Folding gently with a spatula keeps that air in; stirring or deflating the whites makes the cake dense.

“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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