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Dessert

Cornstarch Cake

A simple cake made with cornstarch, flour, sugar, butter, eggs, and baking powder.

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 ↓

Cornstarch Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

  2. Beat the butter until creamy.

  3. Add the sugar and mix well.

  4. Incorporate the eggs and mix thoroughly.

Make and bake the batter

  1. Sift together the flour, cornstarch, and baking powder, then stir into the mixture.

  2. Beat the batter for five minutes.

  3. Pour into a prepared pan and bake immediately.

Cool

  1. Once done, remove from the pan and place the cake on its side to cool.

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

Cornstarch
Lightens the crumb and keeps the cake tender because it contains no gluten.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness, moisture and rich flavour.
Eggs
Provide structure, binding and moisture to the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises in the oven.
Fine granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it stay tender and brown.

The step that matters

Pour into a prepared pan and bake immediately.. Baking powder starts releasing gas as soon as it is mixed with wet ingredients. Waiting before baking lets that gas escape, so the cake may rise less and turn out denser.

“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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