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Dessert

Souk Cream Cake

A layered cake with coconut cream filling and optional dry coconut topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Souk 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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, combine sugar, baking soda, salt, flour, and cream of tartar.

  3. In a teacup, break the eggs and fill it with sour cream, then stir into the dry ingredients until well combined.

  4. Divide the batter into 3 layers and bake until golden.

Make the filling and assemble

  1. For the filling, mix thick sour cream, sugar, and prepared coconut until well combined.

  2. Spread the filling between each layer and on top of the cake.

  3. If desired, sprinkle dry coconut on top for decoration.

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

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

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + coconuttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,315 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + coconuttop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,223 recipes

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

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the cake crumb as it bakes.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the cake set as it bakes.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and tenderness to the batter and a tangy flavor to the filling.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the cream of tartar and sour cream to lift the batter.
Cream of tartar
Acid that works with baking soda to help the cake rise and stay tender.
Prepared coconut
Adds coconut flavor and moisture to the filling.

The step that matters

Stirring the eggs and sour cream into the dry ingredients. Mixing only until combined keeps the batter tender. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which can make the cake tough and dense.

Swap the coconut

The recipe marks coconut as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, cream, egg):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, cream, egg. 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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