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Dessert

Ice Cream Cake

A layered cake made with butter, sugar, milk, flour, cornstarch, egg whites, cream, gelatin, and flavored with Royce's extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. 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 batter

  1. Beat the butter, sugar, and milk together until creamy.

  2. Sift the baking powder with the flour and cornstarch twice, then add to the butter mixture.

  3. Slowly fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  4. Bake in two layers at 350°F (175°C).

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, whip the cream until stiff.

  2. Soak the gelatin in cold water for 2 hours, then dissolve it in boiling water.

  3. Add the dissolved gelatin to the whipped cream, sweeten, and flavor with Royce's extract.

Assemble

  1. Spread the filling between the layers and frost the 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Cream + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the cake a tender crumb.
Egg whites
Provide structure and lift when beaten and folded into the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the cake rises and becomes light.
Pastry flour
Forms the soft cake structure with a fine, tender texture.
Cream
Whipped to form the light, moist filling between the layers.
Gelatin
Sets the whipped cream filling so it holds its shape when sliced.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when beaten stiff. Folding gently keeps that air in the batter, so the cake rises light instead of falling flat.

“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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