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Dessert

Mountain Cake

A fluffy cake made with butter, sugar, flour, milk, egg whites, baking soda, and cream of tartar, topped with an egg white icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the flour, sweet milk, baking soda, and cream of tartar, mixing until well combined.

  4. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently fold them into the batter.

Bake and ice

  1. Pour the batter into baking sheets and bake for 25‑30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Beat the icing egg whites until stiff, then gradually add the powdered sugar and your choice of flavoring.

  3. Spread the icing over the cooled cake.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air, giving a tender, fine-textured crumb.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they add lift and structure to the light cake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar and batter acidity to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter, stabilising the whipped egg whites and helping the cake rise.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten network that gives the cake its structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps hold air for a light texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Whipped whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Folding gently keeps that air in; vigorous stirring deflates the batter and produces a denser 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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