Name: Mock Angel Food Cake
Ingredients: 1 ½ cups sugar; 1 teaspoon salt; 2 cups flour; 1 cup hot sweet milk; 2 teaspoons baking powder; 2 teaspoons extract; 1 scant teaspoon cream of tartar; 5 small eggs or 4 large eggs

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Mock Angel Food Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

Sift together sugar, flour, baking powder, salt, and cream of tartar five times.
Heat the milk but do not boil it.
Slowly pour the milk into the dry ingredients while stirring constantly. Once mixed, add the extract.
Beat the egg whites until very stiff and carefully fold them into the mixture without beating it further.

Bake and cool

Bake in an ungreased pan in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 45 minutes.
Allow the cake to cool in the pan, inverted.

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.

Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 its light, airy structure as it rises.
Flour: Provides the protein structure that sets around the air bubbles to hold the cake's shape.
Sugar: Sweetens the cake and helps stabilize the whipped egg whites, giving a fine, tender crumb.
Cream of tartar: Acidifies the egg whites, helping them whip to a stable, stiff foam.
Baking powder: Releases gas during baking, adding lift to the batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Overbeating or stirring after the whites are folded in deflates the foam, so the cake loses its air and rises poorly. Fold gently, only 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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Mock Angel Food Cake