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Corn Flour Cake

A sweet cake made from corn flour, all-purpose flour, sugar, butter, baking powder, and eggs, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Corn Flour Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream the butter with a wooden spoon.

  2. Add the sugar and mix well.

  3. Break in the eggs and beat together until combined.

  4. Gently stir in the corn flour and all-purpose flour.

  5. Add the baking powder and beat briskly for five minutes.

Bake and cool

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased cake tin, filling it no more than halfway.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for one hour.

  3. Once done, turn the cake out of the tin and cool on a wire rack.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Corn flour
Provides the main body and a tender, slightly grainy crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set during baking to give structure.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a fine, light texture when creamed.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises.

The step that matters

Beat the baking powder mixture briskly for five minutes. Beating after the flour and baking powder are added develops some structure and traps air, which helps the cake rise. Stirring gently at the flour stage keeps the crumb tender, so the two actions must be kept distinct.

“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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