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Dessert

Gold Cake

A cake made with egg yolks, sugar, butter, milk, flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Gold Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the flour

  1. Sift the flour once.

  2. Measure the flour.

  3. Add the baking soda.

  4. Sift the mixture three times.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar thoroughly.

  2. Beat the egg yolks until light.

  3. Add the cream of tartar.

  4. Beat the mixture to a stiff froth.

  5. Combine the frothy egg yolks with the creamed butter and sugar.

  6. Stir the mixture thoroughly.

  7. Add the milk.

  8. Gradually mix in the flour.

  9. Immediately pour the batter into a prepared pan.

Bake

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 30 to 40 minutes.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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 yolks
Provide richness, colour and structure as they are beaten and set in the batter.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps hold air when creamed with butter.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter, stabilising the beaten egg foam and supporting a lighter rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to release gas, helping the cake rise.

The step that matters

Immediately pour the batter into a prepared pan.. Once the baking soda and cream of tartar are mixed in, they begin releasing gas. Waiting lets the bubbles escape, so the cake loses rise and may bake flat and dense.

“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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