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Dessert

Cream Cake Simple

A layered cake with a sweet cream filling made from eggs, milk, sugar, corn starch, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Cream Cake Simple

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 cake

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

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs, then add flour, sugar, baking powder, and water. Mix until smooth.

  3. Divide the batter into two cake pans and bake until golden.

Make the cream

  1. In another bowl, combine the eggs, milk, sugar, corn starch, and butter. Heat until thickened, then let cool.

Assemble

  1. While the cakes are warm, split them in half.

  2. Spread the cooled cream between the layers of 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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

Eggs
Bind the batter and set the structure of the cake and the cream.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its gluten and starch set on baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cakes rise and turn light.
Milk
Provides liquid that, heated with starch, thickens the cream.
Corn starch
Thickens the cream as it heats, giving it a smooth, spreadable body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that softens the cream's texture.

The step that matters

Heating the cream until thickened. Cornstarch only thickens once heated enough for its granules to swell and gelatinize. Heating too little leaves the cream runny, while overheating or scrambling the eggs can make it lumpy.

“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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