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Dessert

White Cake

A light, sweet cake made with sugar, butter, milk, flour, corn starch, baking powder, eggs, and flavored with ratafia.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and melted butter.

  2. Add the sweet milk and stir thoroughly.

  3. Sift together the flour, corn starch, and baking powder, then add to the mixture.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites to stiff peaks and gently fold them into the batter.

  5. Flavor the batter with ratafia and pour it into a prepared cake pan.

Bake

  1. Bake slowly until a toothpick inserted in the center 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.

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. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, 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

Eggs
Whipped whites trap air, giving the cake lift and a light crumb.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Corn starch
Softens the crumb by diluting the flour's gluten, giving a tender texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cake rise.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist texture.
White sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a fine, even crumb when creamed.

The step that matters

Fold the egg whites gently. Whipped egg whites hold the air that lifts the cake. Stirring or deflating them in the batter releases that air, so the cake rises less and turns 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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