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Dessert

Ice Cream Cake

A cake baked with sugar, butter, flour, milk, and egg whites, topped with a meringue glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Ice Cream 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 cake layers

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

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the flour, milk, egg whites, cream of tartar, and baking soda (or baking powder). Mix the batter well.

  4. Pour the batter into thin cake pans.

  5. Bake until golden.

Make the icing

  1. Combine the powdered sugar with enough water to moisten.

  2. Boil the mixture until clear.

  3. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth.

  4. Pour the hot syrup over the beaten egg whites while stirring quickly.

  5. Add the citric acid and vanilla extract. Mix until well combined.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Egg whites add structure and lift to the cake batter and whip into the icing.
Butter
Adds fat and tenderness to the cake crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown while baking.
Baking soda or baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Cream of tartar
Stabilizes the whipped egg whites so the icing holds its stiff froth.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot syrup into the egg whites. Pour the boiling syrup slowly while stirring quickly. Adding it too fast or stopping the stirring can cook or deflate the whipped whites, leaving the icing loose instead of light and fluffy.

“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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