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Dessert

Silver Cake

A light almond-flavored cake made with butter, sugar, almond essence, milk, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Silver Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.

  3. Add the almond essence and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

  5. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture alternately with the milk, starting and ending with the flour.

Bake

  1. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently fold them into the batter.

  2. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.

  3. Bake until the cake shrinks from the sides of the pan.

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. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps give it a fine, tender texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the crumb as the cake bakes.
Eggs
Whipped whites add lift and airy structure, and help set the crumb as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidic ingredient that reacts with baking soda to leaven the batter and stabilizes whipped egg whites.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Stirring them in vigorously knocks that air out, while gentle folding keeps the batter light and well risen.

“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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