Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Layer Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Sift the flour before measuring.
Thoroughly grease the cake tins with lard or cooking oil. Grease the cake tins again.
Make and bake the batter
In a bowl, combine the sugar, water, eggs, cream of tartar, and baking soda.
Gradually add the sifted flour. Mix until well combined.
Pour the batter into the prepared tins.
Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,481 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
- Eggs
- Provide structure and moisture as they set during baking.
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the gluten network that gives the cake its body.
- Granulated sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the crumb brown during baking.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter, stabilising the eggs and supporting a tender crumb.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic batter to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
The step that matters
Combining the batter and pouring it into the tins. Mixing until just combined keeps the gluten from overdeveloping, which would make the cake tough. Baking soda reacts with the acid as soon as it is wet, so the batter should go into the tins and into the oven promptly to keep the rise.
“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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