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 ↓
Whipped Cream 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.
Prepare the batter
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, cream together the sugar and soft butter.
Add the beaten egg yolks and mix well.
Stir in the milk and flavoring.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Mix the cream of tartar and baking soda into the flour, then sift it into the batter and fold in gently.
Bake and finish
Pour the batter into a small dripping pan and bake until golden.
Once the cake is cool, whip the sweet cream until stiff and spread it over the cake.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Egg whites
- Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that lightens the batter and helps it rise.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness and tenderness to the batter and help bind it.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
- Cream of tartar
- Stabilizes the whipped egg whites so they hold their peaks longer.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
- Sweet cream
- Whipped and spread on top, it adds moisture, sweetness and a soft topping.
The step that matters
Folding the egg whites into the batter. Whipped egg whites hold the air that lightens the cake. Folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps that air from deflating, so the cake rises well instead of turning dense.
“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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