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Dessert

Custard or Cream Cake

A layered cake with a custard filling made from milk, eggs, sugar, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 11 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 ↓

Custard or Cream Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cake batter

  1. Cream together two cups of sugar and half a cup of butter.

  2. Add half a cup of sweet milk in which half a teaspoonful of soda is dissolved.

  3. Beat the whites of six eggs to a stiff froth and add to the mixture.

  4. Stir one heaping teaspoonful of cream of tartar into three cups of sifted flour, then add quickly to the mixture.

  5. Bake the batter in a moderate oven in layers like a jelly cake.

Make the custard

  1. Take two cups of sweet milk and place it in a clean suitable dish.

  2. Set the dish in a pot of boiling water on the range or stove.

  3. When the milk comes to a boil, add two tablespoonfuls of cornstarch or flour stirred into half a cup of sugar, the yolks of four eggs, and a little cold milk.

  4. Stir this into the boiling milk and cook until thick enough.

  5. Set the custard aside to cool.

  6. After cooling, add flavoring, either vanilla or lemon.

Assemble

  1. When done, spread custard between the layers.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

884Calories
28 gProtein
31 gFat
121 gCarbs
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
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49

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

By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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 whipped to a stiff froth lighten the batter, and yolks thicken the custard.
Cream of tartar
Reacts with soda to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Soda
Reacts with the acid in the sweet milk to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cornstarch
Thickens the custard as it cooks in the milk.
Butter
Adds fat that gives the cake tenderness and richness.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and hold moisture.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard until thick enough. Cornstarch thickens only when the mixture reaches a boil and is stirred, so undercooked custard stays thin and runny. Stirring the hot milk while adding the starch and eggs also prevents lumps and scrambling.

“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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