Why it works: Flour and butter 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 ↓
Cheap Sandwich 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 the batter
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, beat the egg and mix in the flour, ground rice, castor sugar, butter, baking powder, and flavoring until smooth.
Bake and assemble
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Once cooled, slice the cake in half and add your desired filling between the layers.
Dust the top with icing sugar before serving.
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.
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,645 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Flour + ricetop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,611 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Egg
- Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the main structure of the cake crumb.
- Ground rice
- Gives the cake a fine, slightly sandy and tender texture.
- Castor sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender crumb.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist texture.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the oven, helping the cake rise.
The step that matters
Checking doneness with a toothpick. Pulling the cake too early leaves a wet, collapsed centre, while overbaking dries it out. A clean toothpick shows the crumb has set through, so the 25-30 minute window should be checked rather than trusted blindly.
“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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