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 ↓
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.
Prepare the cake
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, mix sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, and butter until smooth.
Pour the batter into layers and bake until golden.
Make the cream
In a saucepan, scald the sweet milk.
In a separate bowl, mix the beaten eggs with sugar and corn starch.
Add the egg mixture to the scalded milk and boil until thick.
Let the cream cool before assembling the layers.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + corntop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + corntop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,165 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + corntop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,345 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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
- Bind the batter and thicken the cream when cooked, giving structure to both parts.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the cake layers as its proteins set in the oven.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake layers rise and become light.
- Corn starch
- Thickens the cream as its starch swells and sets when boiled with the milk.
- Sweet milk
- Provides the liquid base of the cream, which thickens once heated.
The step that matters
Boil the egg and milk mixture until thick. Eggs and corn starch thicken only when heated enough, but boiling too long can curdle the eggs or leave the cream grainy. Stir constantly and remove from heat once it coats a spoon.
“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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