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Baking

Cornstarch Cake

A baked cake made with butter, sugar, egg yolks, cornstarch, flour, baking powder, and optional flavoring.

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

Cornstarch 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.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

  4. Sift together the cornstarch and flour, then add to the mixture.

  5. Stir in the baking powder.

  6. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the batter.

  7. Flavor the batter as desired.

Bake

  1. Line cake tins with buttered paper and pour in the batter.

  2. Bake immediately for about 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Butter
Adds fat and richness, and creams with sugar to trap air for a tender crumb.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they add lift and an airy, light structure.
Cornstarch
Lightens the crumb and gives a tender, fine texture compared with all-flour cake.
Flour
Provides structure that holds the cake together alongside the cornstarch.
Egg yolks
Add richness, emulsify the batter, and contribute to a tender texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to make the cake rise.

The step that matters

Bake immediately after adding the egg whites and baking powder. Baking powder starts releasing gas as soon as it is moistened, and whipped egg whites deflate over time. Delaying the bake lets the batter lose lift, so the cake may turn out flatter and denser.

“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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