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Dessert

French Cream Cake

A cake made with egg whites, sugar, butter, milk, flour, baking powder, cornstarch, and a pineapple-flavored filling.

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 ↓

French 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the batter

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

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  3. In a separate bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  4. Add the sweet milk and mix well.

  5. Gradually add the flour and baking powder, mixing until smooth.

  6. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

Bake and make the filling

  1. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake for 25-30 minutes.

  2. For the filling, dissolve the cornstarch in a little milk.

  3. In a saucepan, combine the dissolved cornstarch, egg yolks, ½ cup sugar, and a small piece of butter.

  4. Bring 1 pint of sweet milk to a boil, then stir in the mixture and cook until thickened.

Assemble

  1. Let the filling cool, then spread it between the layers of the cake.

  2. Flavor the filling with pineapple as desired.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + pineappletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together885 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they give the batter lift and an airy, light crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and tenderness to the cake.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cake rise.
Egg yolks
Thicken the filling as it cooks and add richness to its custard texture.
Cornstarch
Thickens the filling when it is heated with the milk.

The step that matters

Cooking the filling until thickened. Cornstarch thickens only when the mixture reaches a boil, and egg yolks can curdle if overheated. Stirring constantly and cooking just until thick gives a smooth, stable custard filling.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

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