Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Sunshine Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a mixing bowl, whip the egg whites until frothy, then add the cream of tartar and whip until very stiff.
In a separate bowl, sift and measure the flour and sugar.
Make the batter
Add the sugar to the whipped egg whites, then fold in the beaten egg yolks.
Gently fold in the flour until just combined.
Bake
Pour the batter into a cake pan and bake for about 40 minutes.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,481 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Egg whites
- Whipped to a stiff foam that traps air, giving the cake its light, airy structure.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness and tenderness while helping the batter set into a soft crumb.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the starch and protein that set the structure as the cake bakes.
- Granulated sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps stabilise the whipped egg white foam.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the egg whites, stabilising the foam so it holds its volume.
The step that matters
Folding the flour into the batter. Folding gently and only until combined keeps the air trapped in the whipped egg whites. Overmixing deflates the foam and produces a dense, tough cake.
“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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