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Dessert

Buttercup Cake

A light cake made with egg whites, butter, sugar, milk, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and vanilla, topped with a simple egg yolk frosting.

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

Buttercup 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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  3. In a separate bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  4. Add the milk and mix well.

  5. Gradually add the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt, mixing until smooth.

  6. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

Bake and frost

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake until golden.

  2. For the frosting, beat the egg yolks and add 2 teaspoons of sugar while the cake is still hot.

  3. Spread the frosting over 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. 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

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 whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that lifts the batter as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake's crumb once baked.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter, stabilizing the whipped whites and activating the baking soda.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Folding keeps the air bubbles in the whipped whites intact. Stirring vigorously deflates them, which leads to a denser, flatter cake.

“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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