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Dessert

French Cream Cake

A custard-like cake made with sweet milk, eggs, cornstarch, and baked, then filled with a cream mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Arrowroot and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 525 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

French Cream Cake

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 cream

  1. Boil the sweet milk in a saucepan.

  2. In a bowl, wet the cornstarch or arrowroot with a little milk, then add the eggs and beat together.

  3. Stir the egg mixture into the boiling milk and let it boil.

  4. Add the sugar and butter, then remove from heat and add flavoring extract to taste.

Bake and fill

  1. In another bowl, beat the eggs and mix with powdered sugar, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and water.

  2. Divide the batter into two deep pie plates and bake at 400°F (200°C).

  3. Once baked, split the cakes while warm and fill with the cream mixture.

  4. Store in a cool place for one to two days before serving.

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. Arrowroot + flourtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together525 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Cornstarch or arrowroot
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth, sliceable cream.
Eggs
Add structure and richness to both the cream and the cake batter.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel in the cream.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda to lift the cake.

The step that matters

Cooking the cream until it boils. Starch thickens only when heated to a boil, so the cornstarch or arrowroot mixture must be stirred into the boiling milk and kept boiling. If it stays under a boil, the cream stays thin and may not set when filled and chilled.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Leekfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Sweet potatofits about as well
  4. Arrowrootthe original

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