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Dessert

White Cake

A light, fluffy cake topped with a marshmallow frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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White Cake

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 ↓

White Cake

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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter in a bowl.

  2. Gradually add the sugar and mix well.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix and sift the flour, baking powder, and salt.

  4. Add the dry ingredients to the butter and sugar alternately with the milk.

  5. Cut and fold in the beaten egg whites until well combined.

  6. Stir in the vanilla and pour the batter into shallow pans.

Bake and make the frosting

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for twenty minutes.

  2. For the frosting, melt the marshmallows in a double boiler.

  3. Gradually add the beaten egg white to the melted marshmallows, beating until the mixture is spreadable.

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.

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.

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps hold air in the creamed butter for a light texture.
Flour
Forms the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the cake rises and becomes light.
Egg whites
Beaten and folded in to add lift and a light, airy structure.
Marshmallows
Melt to form the sweet, soft base of the frosting.

The step that matters

Cut and fold in the beaten egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air in the beaten whites. Stirring or deflating them makes the cake dense and less able to rise.

Swap the vanilla

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, flour, milk, egg):

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, milk, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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