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Dessert

Ice Cream Cake

A butter and sugar cake with sweet milk, flour, eggs, and a candied powdered sugar meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Ice Cream 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 batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the sweet milk, flour, egg yolks, and baking powder; mix until well combined.

Make the topping

  1. In a saucepan, combine the powdered sugar and a few drops of water; heat until it boils and becomes slightly candied.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten egg whites until thoroughly mixed.

  3. Add vanilla extract to the mixture and beat until smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour the cake batter into a greased cake pan and top with the meringue mixture.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Add richness and moisture, and help bind the batter.
Egg whites
Beaten into the topping to create a light, airy meringue layer.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the cake rise and become light.
Powdered sugar
Cooks with water into a candied syrup that sweetens and sets the topping.

The step that matters

Stirring the beaten egg whites into the hot sugar syrup. The syrup must be hot enough to cook the egg whites slightly and stabilize the foam; if it has cooled too much or the whites are deflated, the meringue topping will be dense and runny rather than light.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

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