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Dessert

Cream Cakes

A sweet cake made with eggs, sugar, flour, milk, butter, vanilla, water, and additional eggs, baked until golden.

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 Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg and mix in the sugar and flour thoroughly.

  2. In a saucepan, bring the milk to a boil.

  3. Stir the egg mixture into the boiling milk, then add the butter.

  4. Stir continuously until the mixture reaches the desired consistency, then let it cool.

  5. Once cool, mix in the vanilla.

Make the paste and bake

  1. In another pot, boil the water and add the butter until melted.

  2. Stir in the flour until well mixed and cooked.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool, then stir in the eggs one at a time until the mixture is a stiff paste.

  4. Drop spoonfuls onto buttered baking sheets and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15-20 minutes.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Eggs
Bind the paste and give structure as they set in the oven.
Flour
Provides structure once cooked into the paste and sets during baking.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, contributing tenderness to the finished cakes.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, adding moisture and richness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps with browning in the baked cakes.

The step that matters

Stiffening the paste with eggs. Eggs must be added after the flour mixture has cooled, or they can scramble. The paste should be stiff enough to hold its shape when dropped, because the eggs set and give the cakes their structure in the oven.

Swap the vanilla

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, flour, milk, butter):

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour, milk, butter. 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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