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Dessert

Just Splendid Custard Cake

A custard cake with sugar, flour, milk, butter, egg whites, cream of tartar, baking soda, sour cream, egg yolks, almonds, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Just Splendid Custard 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. In a bowl, mix sugar, flour, milk, and butter until smooth.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  4. Add the cream of tartar and baking soda mixture to the batter, then fold in the egg whites gently.

Make the custard and assemble

  1. For the custard, beat the egg yolks with white sugar until well combined.

  2. In another bowl, combine the sour cream with the beaten yolks and mix until thick.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites and chopped almonds, then add vanilla extract.

  4. Spread the custard thickly between the layers of cake.

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. Almond + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake crumb.
Egg whites
Whipped to trap air, which lightens the cake and gives it lift.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic mixture to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and tang, and thickens the custard filling.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set into a thick, smooth filling.
Almonds
Add texture and richness to the custard filling.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Beaten whites hold trapped air that gives lift and lightness. Stirring vigorously or overmixing deflates the foam, leaving a denser cake, so fold gently until just combined.

“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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