Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Cream Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard
Beat two eggs, one cupful of sugar, and two tablespoonfuls of corn starch together.
Boil one pint of milk, seasoning with vanilla bean.
When the milk boils, stir in the mixture, stirring constantly until it thickens.
Before it cools, stir in a tablespoonful of butter.
Make the cake batter
Beat three eggs and one cupful of sugar together.
Dissolve half teaspoon of soda in a tea-cupful of milk.
Add one teaspoon cream of tartar and a little salt sifted with the flour, and one and a half cupfuls of flour.
Add the soda mixture last.
Bake in a very quick oven, in jelly cake pans, for fifteen minutes.
Finish
This quantity makes three layers of cream and four of cake.
Two or three tablespoonfuls of cream improves the cake.
Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)
Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Flour | 1 cup (125g) all-purpose | 455 |
| Milk | 1 cup (244ml) whole | 149 |
| Egg | 1 large egg (50g) | 78 |
| Cream | 1 tbsp (15ml) heavy | 51 |
| Sugar | 1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated | 49 |
| Cake | not in our table | 0 |
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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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + corntop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Milk + teatop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together738 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Corn + teatop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together89 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Flour + corntop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,165 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and custard and give the cake and cream their structure as they set.
- Corn starch
- Thickens the boiled milk into a smooth, stable cream filling.
- Flour
- Forms the cake's structure once the batter sets in the oven.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter so the soda reacts and helps the cake rise.
- Soda
- Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that lightens the cake.
The step that matters
Stir the custard constantly as it boils. Starch thickens only when heated, and stopping the stirring lets it scorch on the bottom or form lumps, so the filling turns grainy instead of smooth.
“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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