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 ↓
Delicate 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
Beat the egg whites until stiff.
In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.
Make the batter
Add the flour, milk, lemon extract, baking soda, and cream of tartar to the butter mixture.
Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.
Bake
Bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
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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Flour + milktop 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
- Beaten until stiff, they trap air that lifts the cake and gives it a light crumb.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar and lemon to release gas that helps the cake rise.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidic ingredient that stabilizes the whipped egg whites and works with the baking soda to aid rising.
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and tenderness.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender texture when creamed with butter.
The step that matters
Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Folding preserves the air bubbles in the whipped egg whites. Stirring vigorously would deflate them, leading to a denser, flatter cake.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, sugar, flour, milk, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, sugar, flour, milk, 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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