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Dessert

Vanity Cake

A cake made by boiling wafer‑like flour patterns in lard, then baking a batter of eggs, sugar, butter, milk, flour, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Vanity Cake

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 ↓

Vanity 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.

Prepare the patterns

  1. Roll the flour thin as a wafer and cut into patterns.

  2. Boil the cut patterns in lard until cooked.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs and add the sugar and butter, mixing well.

  2. Gradually add the milk and flour, mixing until smooth.

  3. Mix the baking powder with the flour and add to the mixture.

  4. If desired, add nutmeg or other spices for flavor.

Bake

  1. Bake in small patty pans for 30 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

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

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

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavor to the cake.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as the batter sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cakes rise and become light.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Adding the baking powder. Baking powder must be mixed evenly through the flour before it goes into the batter, so the gas it releases spreads through the batter and the cakes rise evenly rather than in patches.

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, butter, sugar, milk):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, butter, sugar, milk. 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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