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 ↓
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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the flour, sugar, baking powder, and water until smooth.
Pour the batter into jelly cake pans and bake until golden.
Make the cream filling
For the cream filling, heat the milk in a saucepan.
In a separate bowl, whisk the egg, cornstarch, and sugar together.
Slowly add the hot milk to the egg mixture, stirring constantly.
Return the mixture to the saucepan and cook until thickened, then let it cool.
Flavor the cream filling as desired once cool.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Beaten into the batter to give structure and lift to the cake crumb.
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the main structure of the cake batter once set by heat.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
- Milk
- Forms the body of the cream filling and adds richness and moisture.
- Cornstarch
- Thickens the hot milk into a smooth, sliceable cream when cooked.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps it brown as it bakes.
The step that matters
Cooking the cream filling after adding the hot milk. Egg yolks and cornstarch thicken only when heated gently while stirred. Stirring constantly prevents the egg from scrambling into lumps, and cooking until thickened activates the cornstarch so the filling sets properly.
“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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