Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Grandma's California 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 batter
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff.
Gradually add the sugar while continuing to beat.
Fold in the sour cream, flour, melted butter, lemon rind, and lemon juice.
Dissolve the baking soda in a small amount of water and stir it into the batter.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick 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.
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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Cream + buttertop 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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter 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
- Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that lifts the cake's structure.
- Sour cream
- Adds moisture and a tender crumb to the batter.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic batter to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the batter and helps stabilize the whipped egg whites.
The step that matters
Stirring in the baking soda. Baking soda needs an acid to react and produce gas, so it should be dissolved and folded in evenly without overmixing. Uneven distribution leaves pockets of bitterness or poor rise, and overmixing after the flour is added can deflate the air from the whipped whites.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, cream, flour, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, cream, flour, butter. 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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