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Dessert

Silver Wedding Cake

A light cake made with sugar, flour, butter, egg whites, and essence, finished with icing and silver paper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Silver Wedding Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Line a large cake tin with buttered paper.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Gradually add the flour and essence, mixing well.

  3. Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold them into the mixture.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 1 hour.

  2. Once cooled, cover with icing and decorate with silver paper.

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. 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. 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

Egg whites
Whisked to stiff peaks, they trap air and give the cake its light, risen structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to hold air bubbles, adding tenderness and richness to the crumb.
White sugar
Creamed with butter to help create a light, fluffy batter and add sweetness.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake's crumb once baked.

The step that matters

Folding in the whisked egg whites. Stir too vigorously and the air whipped into the egg whites collapses, leaving a dense cake. Fold gently with a spatula so the batter keeps its lift.

“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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