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Dessert

Yellow Mountain Cake

A light, fluffy yellow cake with a sweet egg white filling.

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

Yellow Mountain 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.

Make the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the butter and powdered sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

  4. Stir in the sweet milk and flour, then beat until smooth.

  5. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  6. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter.

  7. Add the baking soda and cream of tartar, mixing until well combined.

Bake and fill

  1. Pour the batter into greased jelly cake tins.

  2. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

  3. For the filling, beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add the sugar and a pinch of tartaric acid, mixing well.

  4. Spread the filling between the cooled cakes.

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 + milktop 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. Butter + flourtop 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).

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 for lift, while yolks add richness and structure to the batter.
All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the cake its structure once baked.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add tenderness and richness.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a fine, light texture when creamed with butter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to release gas that makes the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidic component that stabilizes whipped egg whites and works with the baking soda to aid rising.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped whites are full of trapped air. Stirring them in vigorously deflates the foam and makes the cake dense, so fold gently with a spatula until just combined.

“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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