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Dessert

Monarch White Cake

A light, airy cake made with cake flour, sugar, baking powder, vanilla, egg whites, butter, and cold water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Monarch White Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the flour

  1. Sift the flour once, then measure the sifted flour.

  2. Add the baking powder and salt, then sift together three times.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter thoroughly.

  2. Gradually add the sugar and cream together until light and fluffy.

  3. Stir in the vanilla extract.

  4. Add the egg whites one at a time, beating until thoroughly blended.

  5. Add the flour alternately with the cold water, a small amount at a time, beating until smooth after each addition.

  6. Turn the batter into two greased 9-inch layer pans.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 10 minutes.

  2. Increase the temperature to 375°F (190°C) and bake for an additional 20 minutes or until done.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Vanilla + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Cake flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Egg whites
Add structure and lift through beaten air, helping the cake set and rise.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich, smooth crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown while creaming aerates the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises in the oven.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and cold water alternately. Mixing flour and liquid in small alternating additions, beating smooth each time, keeps the batter emulsified and limits gluten development, which helps prevent a tough, dense cake.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillathe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Lemonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, egg, butter. 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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