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Dessert

Custard Cake

A baked cake with a custard filling made from eggs, sugar, flour, butter, milk, and lemon flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 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.

Make the cake

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

  2. Beat the eggs and sugar until well combined.

  3. Add the flour, melted butter, cream of tartar, baking soda dissolved in milk, and mix until smooth.

  4. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake until golden brown.

Make the custard

  1. Beat 1 egg with ½ cup sugar and lemon flavoring.

  2. Stir in ⅓ cup flour and ½ pint milk, then cook in a double boiler until thickened.

Assemble

  1. Once the cakes are cool, split them and fill with the custard.

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. Butter + milktop 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
Beaten with sugar to trap air and give the cake its light, structured crumb.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the cake and custard their body.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep it tender and moist.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar and acidic components to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acts as an acid that works with baking soda to lift the batter and add tenderness.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness to the batter and thickens the custard with flour.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard in a double boiler. Flour thickens the custard as its starch gelatinises with heat. Cooking gently over simmering water and stirring prevents scorching and lumps, giving a smooth, thick filling.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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