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Dessert

Angel Cake

A light, airy cake made with butter, sugar, egg whites, corn starch, milk, flour, baking powder, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Angel Cake

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Angel Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the beaten egg whites and beat until light and frothy.

  3. Stir in the corn starch mixed with a little milk.

  4. Add the remaining milk, then sift in the flour and baking powder.

  5. Add the vanilla and beat again.

Bake

  1. Bake in layers.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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 whites
Trapped air in the beaten whites gives the cake its light, airy structure.
Flour
Its proteins set during baking to form the cake's main structure.
Butter
Fat creamed with sugar adds tenderness and a rich, soft crumb.
Sugar
Creamed with butter, it adds sweetness and helps keep the crumb tender.
Baking powder
It releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise in the oven.
Corn starch
It lightens the flour mix, producing a finer, more tender crumb.

The step that matters

Add the beaten egg whites and beat until light and frothy.. The egg whites hold the air that makes the cake rise. Beating too hard or too long can deflate them, so the cake may bake flat and dense.

“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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