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Dessert

White Mountain Cake

A coconut and lemon flavored cake with a coconut icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

White Mountain 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.

Make the cake batter

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the egg whites and mix well.

  4. Dissolve the cream of tartar in the milk and add to the mixture.

  5. Sift the baking soda into the flour and gradually add to the batter.

  6. Flavor with lemon and mix until combined.

  7. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake until golden.

Make the icing and assemble

  1. For the icing, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Gradually add the powdered sugar and mix until smooth.

  3. Fold in the grated coconut and flavor with lemon.

  4. Spread the icing between the layers and on top of the cake.

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. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

  5. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Egg whites
Add structure and lift to the batter, and whipped stiff they form the icing.
Cream of tartar
Stabilises the whipped egg whites, helping them hold their peaks.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas, helping the cake rise.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the icing and gives it a smooth, spreadable body.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites for the icing. Egg whites must reach stiff peaks without being overbeaten or greasy; fat from yolks or residue in the bowl prevents them from whipping fully, and the cream of tartar helps them hold their shape.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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