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Dessert

White Mountain Cake

A light, fragrant cake made with flour, cornstarch, butter, sugar, eggs, milk, rose water, mace, and lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

White 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.

Prepare

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

  2. Beat the butter until creamy.

  3. Gradually add the sugar and beat until very light.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks well, then add to the butter and sugar mixture and beat briskly.

  5. Stir in the milk.

  6. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  7. Mix the flour and cornstarch together.

Make the batter

  1. Sift a portion of the flour mixture into the batter, then fold in a portion of the egg whites. Repeat this process until all ingredients are combined.

  2. Add the rose water, ground mace, and baking powder, and beat thoroughly for a few moments.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into three greased cake pans and bake for about 20 minutes.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Rose + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Rose + macetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together498 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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
Yolks enrich the batter and whites, beaten stiff, give the cake its light, airy structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and a tender crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Cornstarch
Softens the crumb, giving a more tender, delicate texture than flour alone.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise.
Granulated sugar
Creamed with butter to add sweetness and help build a light texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Beaten whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Alternating flour and whites gently and without overmixing keeps that air from collapsing, so the cake stays light.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, rose, butter, sugar, egg, milk, lemon):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

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