Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Maple 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.
Prepare the cake
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
Add the flour, vanilla, baking powder, and egg whites; mix until smooth.
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 25-30 minutes.
Make the maple caramel
In a saucepan, combine the sweet cream, maple sugar, and butter.
Boil the mixture for 40 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Spread the maple caramel between the cake layers and on top.
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.
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together35,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,241 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Sugar
- Sweetens the batter and, creamed with butter, helps give the cake a light texture.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the cake and helps build the caramel.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the cake as it sets in the oven.
- Egg whites
- Add structure and help bind the batter as it bakes.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking so the cake rises.
- Maple sugar
- Provides sweetness and maple flavor and thickens into the caramel as it boils.
The step that matters
Boiling the maple caramel. Boiling the cream, maple sugar, and butter for a long time lets water evaporate and the sugars concentrate and darken. Stirring keeps the mixture from scorching on the bottom of the pan.
Swap the vanilla
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, flour, egg, cream):
- Vanillathe original
- Raisinfits about as well
- Coconutfits less well
- Figfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, egg, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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