Name: Cornstarch Jelly Cake
Ingredients: 1 cup butter; 1 cup flour; 2 cups sugar; 7 egg whites; 1 cup sweet milk; 1 teaspoon cream of tartar; 1 cup cornstarch; 1 teaspoon baking soda; Jelly for filling

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 ↓

Cornstarch Jelly 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.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add the egg whites and mix well.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cornstarch, cream of tartar, and baking soda.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, alternating with the sweet milk, and mix until smooth.

Bake and assemble

Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.
Once cooled, spread jelly between the layers.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 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

Butter: Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Egg whites: Add structure and lift as they set in the oven.
Cornstarch: Softens the crumb, giving a finer, more tender texture than flour alone.
Cream of tartar: Stabilizes the egg whites and helps the cake keep its rise.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic mix to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Sugar: Sweetens the cake and helps trap air when creamed with butter.

“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.