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Dessert

White Cake

A light, fluffy cake made with egg whites, butter, powdered sugar, cake flour, and optional candied fruits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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White Cake

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 ↓

White Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In an earthen bowl, cream the butter until very white.

  3. Add the powdered sugar and cream until frothy.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg whites well and add them alternately with the cake flour until fully combined.

  2. Stir in the sweet milk with the dissolved baking powder and beat well.

  3. Flavor the batter with the extract of your choice.

  4. If using, fold in the candied cherries and angelique.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a pan and bake until the cake begins to brown and pulls away from the sides.

  2. Let the cake cool completely in the pan before removing.

  3. If desired, frost with thick marshmallow icing and sprinkle with chopped pecans before the icing hardens.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + pecanstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,416 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Egg whites
Whipped air and protein give the cake its light, open structure as it sets.
Unsalted butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and adds richness and a tender crumb.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps create a fine, even texture when creamed.
Cake flour
Low-protein flour forms a delicate structure that keeps the crumb soft.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and liquid that hydrates the flour and helps the batter spread evenly.
Baking powder
Releases gas when dissolved and heated, causing the cake to rise.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites and folding in flour alternately. Overmixing once the flour is added develops gluten and deflates the air from the egg whites, producing a dense, tough cake instead of a light one.

Swap the pecans

The recipe marks pecans as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, sugar, flour, milk, lemon):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Milletfits better
  4. Pecansthe original

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