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Dessert

Ice Cream Cake

A baked cake with a sugar syrup frosting made from egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

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

  2. Cream together the granulated sugar and butter.

  3. Add the sweet milk and mix well.

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

  5. Fold the egg whites into the mixture.

  6. Sift together the flour and baking powder, then gradually add to the batter.

  7. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make the frosting and finish

  1. For the frosting, combine the white sugar and water in a saucepan and bring to a boil.

  2. Boil until the mixture forms a string when dropped from a spoon.

  3. Slowly pour the hot syrup into the beaten egg whites while beating constantly.

  4. Add Royce's vanilla to taste and frost the cooled 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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 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, giving the cake a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Egg whites
Beaten to stiff peaks and folded in, they lighten the batter and help it rise.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as the batter sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps trap air when creamed with butter.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot syrup into the egg whites. The syrup must be at a full boil and poured slowly while beating constantly. This cooks the egg whites into a stable, glossy meringue frosting and prevents them from scrambling or deflating.

Swap the vanilla

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, egg, flour):

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, egg, flour. 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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