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Dessert

Cream Filling for Cakes

A creamy filling made from corn starch, milk, eggs, sugar, butter, and flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 Filling for Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Moisten the corn starch with a little milk.

  2. In a bowl, combine the moistened corn starch, eggs, and sugar.

  3. Cook the mixture until nearly done.

  4. Add the butter and flavoring, mixing well.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Corn starch
Thickens the filling as it heats, giving it a smooth, sliceable body.
Eggs
Add richness and help thicken the custard-like filling as they cook.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the flavor of the starch and eggs.
Butter
Adds fat for a soft, creamy texture and a rich mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture until nearly done. Cornstarch only thickens fully when heated, and eggs must be cooked gently to set without scrambling. Undercooking leaves the filling thin and can leave a raw starchy taste, so cook it steadily, stirring, until it becomes thick and glossy.

“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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