Skip to main content
Dessert

Brown and White Layer Cake

A layered cake with brown and white layers, flavored with lemon, spices, cocoa, vanilla, and iced with coconut and chocolate creams.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cocoa and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 357 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Brown and White Layer Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix egg yolks, sugar, butter, baking powder, and flour.

  3. Divide the mixture into two parts.

  4. Flavor one part with essence of lemon.

  5. In the other part, mix cocoa or chocolate with a little hot milk and add spices and vanilla.

Bake and assemble

  1. Pour the mixtures into sandwich tins and bake until done.

  2. For icing, mix icing sugar with egg whites to desired consistency.

  3. Spread layers of icing thickly sprinkled with grated coconut between the cake layers.

  4. Ice the top of the cake and sprinkle lightly with coconut, then decorate with chocolate creams.

  5. Place the cake in a cool oven to set.

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. Cocoa + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together357 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Milk + cocoatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter into a tender crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavor.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and stays light.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown during baking.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps the chocolate mixture blend into the batter.

The step that matters

Place the cake in a cool oven to set. Setting the cake gently in a cool oven lets the structure firm up without over-browning or sinking. Pulling it out too early can leave the centre collapsed or gummy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, flour, milk, cocoa, vanilla. 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesChocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipes