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Dessert

Caramel Cake

A layered cake with caramel icing made from butter, sugar, flour, egg whites, milk, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and milk 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 ↓

Caramel 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 batter

  1. Cream together the butter and sugar.

  2. Slowly add the milk, then mix in the flour combined with baking powder.

  3. Fold in the well-beaten egg whites and vanilla extract.

Bake and ice

  1. Bake in layer pans lined with greased parchment paper at 350°F (175°C).

  2. For the caramel icing, boil the brown sugar, cream, and butter until it holds together in cold water.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla extract.

  4. If the icing curdles, strain and boil again.

  5. Spread the icing between the layers and on top of the cake.

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. Vanilla + milktop 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 give the cake tenderness and a rich flavor.
Egg whites
Folded in to trap air and give the cake its light, risen structure.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises in the pans.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Brown sugar
Forms the caramel icing and adds its deep, toffee-like sweetness.
Cream
Adds richness and fat to the caramel icing, helping it set smoothly.

The step that matters

Boiling the caramel icing. Sugar boiled with cream and butter can curdle or turn grainy if the mixture is overheated or stirred unevenly. Boiling only until it holds together in cold water reaches the right sugar concentration for a smooth, set icing.

“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.

More caramel cake recipes

Chocolate 16Filling 11Potato 9Maple 4 See all 114 →

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