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Dessert

Ice Cream Cake

A layered cake made with butter, sugar, milk, baking powder, flour, corn starch, egg whites, cream, gelatin, and flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

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 batter

  1. Beat the butter, sugar, and milk together until creamy.

  2. Sift the baking powder with the flour and corn starch twice.

  3. Add the dry mixture to the creamy mixture and fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

Bake

  1. Bake in two layers at 350°F (175°C).

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, whip the cream until stiff.

  2. Soak the gelatin in cold water for 2 hours, then dissolve it in boiling water.

  3. Sweeten and flavor the whipped cream with Royce's extract.

Assemble

  1. Spread the filling between the layers and frost the 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Cream + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they trap air and give the cake its light, airy structure.
Pastry flour
Provides the starch and gluten framework that sets the cake's crumb as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the batter rise in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and contributes richness and flavor.
Gelatin
Sets the whipped cream filling so it holds its shape between the layers.
Cream
Whipped to stiffness, it forms the light, moist filling and frosting.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatin fully. Gelatin must be softened in cold water and then completely dissolved in hot water. Any undissolved granules can leave the cream grainy or cause uneven setting, so the filling may not hold its shape.

“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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