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Baking

Gold and Silver Cake

A two-part cake with a gold batter made of yolks and a silver batter made of whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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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 ↓

Gold and Silver 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batters

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, scant butter, sugar, flour, sour milk, baking soda, corn starch, lemon, and vanilla until smooth.

  3. In another bowl, combine the sugar, butter, flour, sour milk, baking soda, corn starch, and egg whites for the silver part.

Bake and serve

  1. Grease a cake pan and alternate spoonfuls of the gold and silver batter into the pan.

  2. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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. 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. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

Egg yolks
Add richness, color and structure to the gold batter.
Egg whites
Whip-free addition to the silver batter, adding lightness and structure as it sets.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich, moist crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and tenderizes the crumb.

The step that matters

Alternating the gold and silver batter. Spooning the two batters in alternating layers, rather than mixing them, keeps the gold and silver colors distinct. Pouring them in unevenly can blur the pattern and make the bake less even.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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