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Dessert

Fannie's White Cake

A simple white cake made with flour, sugar, sweet milk, egg, butter, baking soda, cream of tartar, and lemon extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Fannie's White Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk.

  3. Add the milk mixture to the egg and lemon extract.

  4. Stir in 2 cups of flour.

  5. Sift the cream of tartar into the remaining cup of flour and gently fold it in.

Bake

  1. Bake immediately in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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
Provides the structure that holds the cake once it sets in the oven.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the batter stay tender and browned.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Egg
Adds structure and binds the batter as it sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that works with the baking soda to help the cake rise.

The step that matters

Bake immediately in a 400°F (200°C) oven.. The baking soda and cream of tartar start producing gas as soon as they are wet and mixed, so the batter loses lift if it waits before baking.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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