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Dessert

Madeira Cakes

Madeira Cakes are baked with coconut, butter, sugar, flour, 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: 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 ↓

Madeira Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the Cottolene, butter, and sugar. Beat until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

  3. Sift in the flour and baking powder, and mix until smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into paper-lined tins and bake until golden.

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. 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. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Cottolene
Provides fat that keeps the cakes tender and moist.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, and helps trap air when creamed with sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens and, when beaten with fat, traps air that lifts the batter.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake's shape as it bakes.
Eggs
Add structure, moisture, and richness, and help bind the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven, helping the cakes rise.

The step that matters

Beating the fat and sugar until light and fluffy. Creaming fat and sugar traps air bubbles that give the cakes lift and an even crumb. Under-beating leaves the batter dense, while adding eggs too quickly can curdle it and weaken that structure.

“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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