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Dessert

Custard Cake

A layered cake with custard filling and frosted with stiffened egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

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 large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Stir in the milk and vanilla extract.

  5. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.

  6. Gradually add the dry mixture to the wet mixture.

  7. Divide the batter into layers and bake until golden brown.

Make the custard

  1. For the custard, heat 1 pint of milk in a saucepan.

  2. In a bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and 1 teaspoon of flour.

  3. Slowly add the hot milk to the egg mixture, stirring constantly.

  4. Return the mixture to the saucepan and cook until thickened.

  5. Flavor the custard with vanilla or lemon extract and add nuts if desired.

Make the frosting and assemble

  1. Spread the custard between the layers of cake.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  3. Gradually add sugar until stiff peaks form.

  4. Spread the frosting on top of the 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. 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. Vanilla + nutstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together638 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Provide structure and richness as they set during baking.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set with heat.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness and smoothness.
Egg whites
Whipped into stiff peaks to give the frosting its airy structure.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard until thickened. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but if the custard gets too hot or is cooked too fast, the yolks can scramble and turn grainy. Stirring constantly and cooking gently keeps it smooth.

Swap the nuts

The recipe marks nuts as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, milk, sugar, vanilla, flour, egg):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, sugar, vanilla, flour, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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