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Dessert

Sandwich Cake

A cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, leavening, lemon, coconut, and layered with jelly or custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Sandwich Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

  4. Beat the egg whites in a separate bowl until stiff peaks form.

  5. Combine the flour and baking powder in another bowl.

  6. If using cream of tartar, mix it with the flour; if using baking soda, mix it with the milk.

  7. Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, alternating with the milk.

  8. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  9. Add lemon extract to taste and mix well.

Bake and assemble

  1. Divide the batter among four flat baking tins.

  2. Bake for about 15‑20 minutes or until golden and a toothpick comes out clean.

  3. Once cooled, layer with jelly or custard and top with moistened coconut.

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich and add richness; whipped whites lighten the batter and help it rise.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavour, and creaming traps air in the batter.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown while creaming aerates the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cakes rise and become light.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form a smooth, pourable batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only while whipped; stirring them in vigorously knocks the air out, so fold gently to keep the cakes light.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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

“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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