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Dessert

Ice Cream Cake

A layered cake with a sweet vanilla filling made from sugar, water, citric acid, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 cake layers

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the milk, flour, corn starch, baking powder, and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites to stiff peaks and gently fold them into the batter.

  5. Divide the batter into five layers and bake each layer until golden.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, combine 4 cups of sugar and 1 cup of water in a saucepan.

  2. Cook the mixture until it thickens, then cool slightly.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites and citric acid, and flavor with vanilla.

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. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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 and add tenderness and richness to the cake.
Egg whites
Beaten to stiff peaks, they add lift and a light, airy structure to the layers and filling.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake layers together.
Corn starch
Softens the crumb by diluting the flour's gluten, giving a tender texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas as it heats, helping the layers rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps browning, and forms the syrup-based filling.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stiff egg whites hold the air that gives the batter lift. Folding gently preserves that air; stirring hard deflates the foam and leaves dense layers.

“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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