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 ↓
White Mountain 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Make the batter
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Stir in the milk and lemon extract.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.
Bake and finish
Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Let the cakes cool before frosting with jelly, chocolate, or custard.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
- Granulated sugar
- Creaming with butter traps air for a light texture and adds sweetness.
- Unsalted butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and creaming it with sugar helps aerate the batter.
- Eggs
- Add structure, richness and moisture, and help bind the batter.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises in the oven.
The step that matters
Mixing the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Overmixing once the flour is added develops gluten, which toughens the cake. Mix only until just combined so the crumb stays tender.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, milk, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, milk, egg. 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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