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Dessert

White Mountain Cake

A layered cake made with egg whites, sugar, butter, flour, and a powdered sugar frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. 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.

Make the cake batter

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

  2. Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form.

  3. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  4. Add the flour and baking powder to the sugar mixture.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

  6. Divide the batter into jelly pans to create four layers.

Bake and make the frosting

  1. Bake the layers until golden.

  2. Dissolve the powdered sugar in enough water to make a thick paste.

  3. Beat the egg whites lightly.

  4. Combine the beaten egg whites with the dissolved sugar.

  5. Place the mixture in a tin vessel over boiling water.

  6. Beat continuously for 15-20 minutes.

  7. Remove from heat.

  8. Continue beating until cool.

Assemble

  1. Use the frosting to layer the cake while warm.

  2. Add a little warm water if the frosting becomes too thick.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Egg whites
Beaten to soft peaks, they trap air and give the cake its light, airy structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds fat that gives the cake a tender crumb and richness.
Sugar
Creamed with butter, it sweetens the cake and helps set its tender texture and browning.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the layers together once baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the layers rise.
Powdered sugar
Dissolved into a thick paste, it forms the sweet, glossy frosting.

The step that matters

Beating the frosting over boiling water. Beating the egg white and sugar mixture over heat for a long time cooks the whites and thickens the frosting. Keep the water simmering and beat steadily, since uneven heat or stopping early can leave the frosting runny or grainy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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