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Dessert

Diet Bread Cake

A low-calorie cake made with eggs, sugar, water, and flour, baked until firm.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Diet Bread Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. In a deep bowl, whisk together 6 eggs and 6 egg yolks until combined.

  2. In a saucepan, combine 1 pound of loaf sugar and ½ cup of water. Heat while stirring until nearly boiling.

Make the batter

  1. Gradually pour the hot sugar mixture over the eggs while whisking continuously until cool.

  2. Gently fold in 1 pound of fine dry cold flour until just combined.

Bake

  1. Line your baking tins with parchment paper, allowing it to rise an inch above the edges.

  2. Pour the batter into the prepared tins, sift loaf sugar on top, and bake in a warm oven at 350°F (175°C) until firm on 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.

  1. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Whisked eggs trap air and set into the cake's light, airy structure.
Egg yolks
Yolks add richness, moisture and a tender crumb.
Loaf sugar
Sugar sweetens the cake and helps stabilise the whisked egg foam.
Fine dry cold flour
Flour provides the starch and protein that set the cake's final structure.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot sugar mixture into the eggs. Pour the hot syrup slowly while whisking constantly. Heat added gradually and evenly cooks the eggs gently and thickens them without scrambling, and the whisking keeps air in the foam that gives the cake its lift.

“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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