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Dessert

Custard Cake

A cake with batter of sugar, butter, eggs, flour, milk, baking soda, and cream of tartar, topped with custard of milk, eggs, sugar, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Custard Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the cake

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and melted butter.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks and mix well.

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, alternating with the milk.

  6. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently until combined.

  7. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make the custard

  1. For the custard, heat ½ pint of milk in a saucepan.

  2. In a bowl, whisk together 2 eggs and sugar to taste.

  3. Slowly add the warm milk to the egg mixture, stirring constantly.

  4. Add vanilla extract for flavor.

  5. Bake the custard in pie plates until set.

Assemble

  1. Once the cake is cool, layer the custard between the cake layers.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Butter + milktop 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 + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake once baked.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown and stay tender.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to help the cake rise.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form the batter and custard.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Whipped egg whites hold air that makes the cake light. Stirring them vigorously deflates the foam, leaving a dense, flat cake.

“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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