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Dessert

Custard or Cream Cake

A layered cake made with a batter of sugar, butter, milk, baking soda, eggs, flour, and custard made from milk, cornstarch, sugar, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Custard or Cream Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the cake batter

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in the sweet milk and add it to the mixture.

  3. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth and fold the egg whites into the mixture.

  4. Stir the cream of tartar into the sifted flour.

  5. Quickly add the flour mixture to the batter.

Bake and make the custard

  1. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven in layers like jelly cake.

  2. For the custard, heat 2 cups of sweet milk in a double boiler until boiling.

  3. Mix the cornstarch or flour with ½ cup sugar and the yolks of 4 eggs.

  4. Add a little cold milk.

  5. Stir the mixture into the boiling milk and cook until thickened.

  6. Set aside to cool.

  7. Add vanilla or lemon for flavor.

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

Eggs
Whites whipped to a stiff froth give the cake lift and an airy, light crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender texture to the cake.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps trap air for a fine crumb.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure and, in the custard, thickens the filling with cornstarch.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Stabilizes the whipped egg whites and adds acidity to the batter for lift.

The step that matters

Folding the egg whites into the batter. Whipped whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Stirring hard or over-mixing deflates them, leaving a dense cake. Fold gently and quickly.

“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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