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Dessert

Gold Cake

A light, fluffy cake made with flour, butter, sugar, egg yolks and whites, baking powder, and sweet milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Gold 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

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour and baking powder.

Make the batter

  1. In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the egg yolks and sweet milk to the butter mixture, mixing well.

  3. Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients, stirring until combined.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  5. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Flavor as desired before serving.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
White sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, traps air that lightens the batter.
Egg yolks
Add richness and fat, and help bind the batter into a smooth emulsion.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that lifts and gives the cake an airy texture.

The step that matters

Gently fold the egg whites into the batter. Whipped egg whites hold air bubbles that make the cake rise and stay light. Stirring vigorously deflates that foam, which leads to a dense, heavy cake. Fold gently with a spatula until just combined.

“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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