Skip to main content
Dessert

Ice Cream Cake

A baked cake with a sugar glaze made from boiled sugar and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 cake

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the milk and mix well.

  3. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites (not stiff) along with the cream of tartar, baking soda, and flour.

  4. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make the icing and finish

  1. For the icing, boil the sugar and cold water together for 15 minutes.

  2. Beat the 2 egg whites until stiff, then gradually pour in the hot sugar mixture while continuing to beat. Add the vanilla and mix until smooth.

  3. Once the cake is cool, frost it with the icing.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

Eggs
Beaten whites trap air, giving the cake its light, airy structure.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the cake its main structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda and helps stabilize the egg whites.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, boiled with water, forms the syrup that sets the icing.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Egg whites must be folded gently and kept not stiff so the batter stays airy; overbeating or deflating them makes the cake dense and flat.

“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.

More ice cream cake recipes

Filling 6Chocolate 5 See all 127 →

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes