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Dessert

Lady Cake

A sweet cake made with flour, sugar, butter, egg whites, baking powder, and flavoring extract, baked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter 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 ↓

Lady Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light.

  2. Sift the flour.

  3. Weigh and sift again with baking powder.

Mix and bake

  1. Gradually mix in the flour and beaten egg whites until stiff and frothy.

  2. Add the flavoring and mix until smooth.

  3. Bake in a slow oven (300°F / 150°C), covering with paper until risen.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb once baked.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, creamed with butter, helps give a fine, tender texture.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender, rich crumb and carries flavor.
Egg whites
Trap air when beaten, giving the batter lightness and structure as it sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise in the oven.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. The air trapped in beaten whites gives the cake its lift. Mixing gently and only until combined keeps that foam from collapsing, while overmixing deflates it and makes 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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