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 ↓
Tilden 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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
Cream the butter and sugars together until light and fluffy.
Add the sweet milk and mix well.
Sift together the flour, corn starch, and baking powder.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Fold the egg whites and lemon extract into the batter gently.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake until golden brown, about 30-40 minutes.
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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + corntop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + corntop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,165 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,927 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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
- Eggs
- Egg whites whipped to stiff peaks give the cake its light, airy structure.
- Flour
- Provides the main structure that holds the cake's crumb once baked.
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and tenderness.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps it brown while creaming aerates the batter.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes tender.
- Corn starch
- Softens the flour's gluten, giving a finer, more tender crumb.
The step that matters
Folding in the egg whites. Whipped egg whites hold the cake's air, so folding gently keeps them from deflating. Overmixing knocks out the air and leads to a dense, flat cake.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, milk, flour, corn, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, flour, corn, egg. 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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