Name: Cream Cake with Custard Filling
Ingredients: ½ cup butter; 3 cups flour; ½ cup sweet milk; 2 teaspoons baking powder; 2 cups sweet milk (for filling); 2 tablespoons cornstarch; ½ cup sugar; 4 egg yolks; a little cold milk (for custard)

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 ↓

Cream Cake with Custard Filling

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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream the butter.
Gradually add the flour, sweet milk, and baking powder. Mix until smooth.
Pour the batter into cake pans.
Bake in the moderate oven until golden.

Make the custard

Bring 2 cups of sweet milk to a boil for the filling.
In a separate bowl, mix cornstarch, sugar, and egg yolks with a little cold milk.
Slowly add the hot milk to the mixture, stirring constantly until thickened.
Let the custard cool.

Assemble

Spread the cooled custard between the cake layers.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 the sugar-free batter to give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Flour: Provides the structure that holds the cake layers together.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Egg yolks: Thicken the custard when heated and add richness and color.
Cornstarch: Thickens the custard so it sets to a spreadable filling.

The step that matters

Adding the hot milk to the yolk mixture. Pouring hot milk in too fast can scramble the egg yolks. Adding it slowly while stirring constantly tempers the yolks and lets the cornstarch thicken the custard smoothly.

“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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Cream Cake with Custard Filling