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 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.
Prepare the batter
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour and cream of tartar.
Dissolve the corn starch in half of the milk.
Add the dissolved corn starch and the remaining milk to the butter and sugar mixture.
Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients, mixing well.
Fold and bake
In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the batter.
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Corn + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps give it a light, tender crumb.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and tenderness, and traps air when creamed with sugar.
- Flour
- Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
- Corn starch
- Softens the crumb and keeps the cake tender by diluting the flour's gluten.
- Egg whites
- Whipped to stiff peaks, they add airy lift and structure to the batter.
- Cream of tartar
- Stabilizes the whipped egg whites so they hold their volume longer.
The step that matters
Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the batter. Folding gently preserves the air whipped into the egg whites. Stirring vigorously deflates them, which leaves the cake dense and less risen.
“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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