Name: Snowflake Cake
Ingredients: ½ cup butter; 1⅓ cups caster sugar; 2 cups pastry flour; ½ cup milk; 5 egg whites; 1 teaspoon cream of tartar; 2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda or 1½ teaspoons baking powder; juice of ½ lemon

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Snowflake Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Beat the butter until creamy.
Gradually add the sugar and lemon juice.
Once light, mix in the milk and beaten egg whites.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour with the baking soda and cream of tartar.
Fold the flour mixture into the wet ingredients.
Pour the batter onto a greased baking sheet.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).
When nearly cool, pour icing over the top.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 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

Swap the lemon

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

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Coconutfits better
Lemonthe original

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