Why it works: Milk and butter 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
Ingredients
Directions
Make the cake
Mix one cup of sugar, three eggs, one cup of flour, one teaspoon of baking powder, and one tablespoon of butter.
Bake in layers.
Make the cream
Scald a half pint of sweet milk.
Beat one egg with a heaping teaspoon of sugar and one teaspoon of corn starch.
Add the beaten egg mixture to the scalding milk and boil until quite thick.
Let the cream cool before assembling the cake.
Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Flour | 1 cup (125g) all-purpose | 455 |
| Milk | 1 cup (244ml) whole | 149 |
| Butter | 1 tbsp (14g) | 102 |
| Egg | 1 large egg (50g) | 78 |
| Sugar | 1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated | 49 |
One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.
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. See the original page.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + corntop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
-
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + corntop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,165 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,345 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Flour and butter 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
- Eggs
- Provide structure and richness, and help thicken the cream when cooked.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the cake crumb.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas to make the cake layers rise.
- Corn starch
- Thickens the cream as it heats with the milk and egg.
- Sweet milk
- Provides liquid that becomes the body of the cream.
The step that matters
Boiling the egg and milk mixture. Egg proteins set and starch gelatinizes as the mixture heats, so it must be stirred and cooked until thick. Stopping too early leaves the cream thin, while overheating can curdle the eggs.
“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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