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Dessert

Vanilla Cake

A butter-based cake with sugar, eggs, milk, flour, baking powder, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Vanilla Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter until creamy.

  2. Add the sugar and beaten egg yolks, and mix for a few minutes.

  3. Incorporate the egg whites.

  4. Mix the baking powder with the flour and add it to the mixture, beating well.

  5. Add a few drops of essence of vanilla and use the milk to achieve the right consistency.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased tin and bake for about 1 hour.

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter
Adds richness and a tender crumb when beaten until creamy.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps trap air when mixed with the butter.
Eggs
Add structure, richness and lift as the proteins set during baking.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, making the cake rise in the oven.
New milk
Adds moisture and adjusts the batter to a smooth, pourable consistency.

The step that matters

Beating the flour into the batter. Once flour is added, beating well develops gluten, which makes the crumb firmer. Mixing only until the flour is combined keeps the cake tender.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

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