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Dessert

Ice-creah Cake

A layered cake with lemon‑flavored jelly filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Fayette (Mo.). Baptist Church, Ladies of the · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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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 ↓

Ice-creah Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the first batter

  1. Combine one cup sugar, two and a half cups flour, whites of four eggs beaten stiff, half cup butter, two-thirds cup sweet milk, and two teaspoons baking powder.

  2. Bake the batter in jelly tins.

Make the boiled filling

  1. Dissolve one cup sugar in water and boil until brittle.

  2. Add the whites of two eggs beaten well and beat until cold.

  3. Add a teaspoon of tartaric acid and place the mixture between cake layers.

Make the second batter

  1. Combine one cup butter, three cups sugar, five cups flour, one cup sweet milk, two teaspoons baking powder, and whites of eight eggs.

  2. Bake the batter in jelly cake pans.

Make the lemon filling and assemble

  1. Combine yolks of eight eggs, one cup butter, one and a half cups sugar, three tablespoons flour, one-half cup water, juice of two lemons, and grated peel of one lemon; boil until thick.

  2. Place the warm filling between the cake layers.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

845Calories
28 gProtein
26 gFat
124 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Fayette (Mo.). Baptist Church, Ladies of the. 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. 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.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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
Whites trap air for lift and structure, while yolks enrich and thicken the filling.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake layers and filling together.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender crumb to the cake and filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and filling and helps give the cake a tender texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the layers rise and become light.
Lemons
Juice gives the filling its tart flavour, and the peel adds aroma.

The step that matters

Boil the lemon filling until thick. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but if the filling boils too hard or too long it can curdle or turn grainy. Stop cooking once it coats a spoon.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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