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Dessert

Maple Sugar Cake

A cake made with butter, sweet milk, flour, sugar, maple sugar, cream of tartar, baking soda, egg whites, vanilla, and a maple syrup filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Maple Sugar 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.

Make the cake

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the butter and granulated sugar until light.

  3. Add the sweet milk, flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and vanilla; mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then fold into the batter.

  5. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, boil the sugar and water together until it cleans from the spoon.

  2. Slowly pour the syrup over the beaten egg whites, mixing well.

  3. Spread the filling between the layers of the cake.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Egg whites
Beaten to stiff peaks, they trap air and give the cake its light, airy structure.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake once its proteins set during baking.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and tender texture.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so baking soda reacts properly, helping the cake rise and stay tender.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to release gas, lifting the cake as it bakes.
Maple sugar
Sweetens the cake and filling and adds a distinct maple flavor.

The step that matters

Cooking the syrup for the filling. Boil the sugar and water until the syrup reaches the right concentration; too little cooking leaves a runny filling, while too much turns it grainy or hard. Pouring it slowly into the beaten whites keeps the foam from deflating.

“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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