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Dessert

Lazy Daisy Cake

A simple cake made with eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder, milk, butter, and topped with butter, brown sugar, cream, and coconut or walnuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and coconut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,294 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Lazy Daisy Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs until thick.

  2. Gradually add the sugar while mixing constantly, then add the vanilla.

  3. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt, then add to the egg mixture and mix well.

  4. Heat the milk with the butter until boiling, then add to the batter and beat well.

Bake and top

  1. Pour the thin batter into a shallow 10-inch square pan.

  2. Bake for about 30 minutes in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

  3. While still hot, spread the topping mixture of butter, brown sugar, cream, and coconut or walnuts.

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. Vanilla + coconuttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

Eggs
Beaten to trap air, giving the cake its light, airy structure.
Pastry flour
Provides the starch and gluten framework that sets the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps keep the crumb tender and moist.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise in the oven.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, hydrating the flour for a soft crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and tenderness in the batter and the topping.

The step that matters

Heat the milk and butter until boiling before adding to the batter. Hot liquid fat helps the batter stay smooth and tender, and beating it in well distributes the fat evenly so the crumb bakes uniformly.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Coconutthe original
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Strawberryfits about as well

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