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Dessert

Angel Food Layer Cake

A layered cake made with angel food or marshmallow pieces and sweet cream filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Angel Food Layer 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

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the eggs, milk, vanilla, and baking powder, mixing well.

  4. Gradually add the flour, mixing until smooth.

  5. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Make the filling

  1. Cut the pink angel food or marshmallows into small pieces and dissolve in sweet cream overnight.

  2. The next morning, whip the cream until fluffy.

Assemble

  1. Once the cake is cool, spread the whipped cream filling between the layers.

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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter set and hold its rise in the oven.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure once mixed, setting the crumb as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, lifting the cake so it rises as it bakes.
Sweet cream
Whipped to form the fluffy filling that moistens and sweetens the layers.
Fine granulated sugar
Creams with butter for a fine, tender texture and adds sweetness.

The step that matters

Dissolving the pink angel food or marshmallows in the cream overnight. Marshmallow-type candy must fully dissolve into the cream before whipping; undissolved pieces leave gritty specks and can stop the cream from whipping to a stable, fluffy filling.

“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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