Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Rich Bride-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 your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
Cream the butter until smooth.
Gradually add the powdered sugar and continue to beat until fluffy.
In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and then add them to the butter mixture, mixing well.
Sift in the flour and ground mace or nutmeg, and mix until combined.
Stir in the lemon extract or orange-flower water.
Bake
Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake for about 1 hour 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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 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
- Flour
- Forms the cake's structure once its proteins set during baking.
- Butter
- Adds richness and tenderness, and carries flavour through the batter.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps the butter hold air when beaten until fluffy.
- Eggs
- Add structure, moisture and richness, and help bind the batter.
- Ground mace or nutmeg
- Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour to the cake.
The step that matters
Creaming the butter and sugar until fluffy. Beating air into the butter and sugar creates tiny bubbles that help the cake rise and give it a light crumb. Under-beating leaves a dense cake, while the eggs should be fully incorporated to keep the batter from curdling.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, sugar, egg, lemon):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, egg, lemon. 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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