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Dessert

Philadelphia White Mountain Cake

A light, lemon-flavored cake with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, corn starch, sherry, mace, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Philadelphia White Mountain Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter and powdered sugar until creamy.

  2. Add the egg yolks and beat until light.

  3. Mix in the vanilla, lemon juice, and lemon rind, and ground mace.

  4. Whip the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the batter alternately with the milk.

  5. Sift the corn-starch and baking powder together, then gradually add to the mixture while beating quickly.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into 3 large jelly‑cake tins.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 10 to 12 minutes.

  3. Test with a broom whisk; if it comes out dry, the cake is done.

  4. Turn the layers out onto a board, then flip them back to have the upper side on top.

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Lemon + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sherry + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Whipped whites give the batter lift and an airy, light crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and tender texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the layers rise and turn light.
Corn-starch
Softens the crumb, giving a finer, more tender texture than flour alone.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form a smooth, pourable batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites must be whipped stiff and folded in gently, alternating with the milk. Overmixing deflates the foam, so the layers bake up dense instead of light.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, egg, lemon, sherry, milk, corn. 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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