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Dessert

Meringue Cake

A cake made with a butter‑sugar‑egg yolk batter topped with meringue and a lemon‑cornstarch filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Meringue Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the cake layers

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

  2. Cream together the butter and ½ cup sugar. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

  3. Stir in the milk, flour, and baking powder until combined.

  4. Divide the batter into two layers and spread evenly in cake pans.

Make the meringue and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff. Gradually add 1 cup sugar to the whites, mixing until glossy.

  2. Spread the meringue over each layer of batter.

  3. Bake for 20 minutes or until the meringue is lightly browned.

Make the filling and assemble

  1. For the filling, combine ½ cup sugar, 1 cup milk, 1 egg, and cornstarch in a double boiler.

  2. Cook until thickened, then stir in the lemon juice.

  3. Let the filling cool, then spread it between the baked 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 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).

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

Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the cake a tender crumb.
Egg yolks
Add richness and structure to the batter, helping it set when baked.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake layers rise and stay light.
Egg whites
Whipped into stiff foam, they form the airy meringue topping that browns in the oven.
Cornstarch
Thickens the filling as it cooks, giving it a smooth, spreadable body.

The step that matters

Cooking the filling in the double boiler. Cornstarch needs to reach a boil to thicken fully, while eggs curdle if overheated. Gentle, steady heat over a double boiler lets the filling thicken smoothly without becoming grainy or scrambled.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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