Skip to main content
Dessert

Cream Cake, No. 2

A light cake with a sweet milk filling flavored with vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Cream Cake, No. 2

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.

Prepare the cake

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

  2. Beat the egg whites and yolks separately.

  3. Combine the egg yolks with sugar and cold water, then mix in the flour and baking powder.

  4. Pour the batter into jelly tins and bake until golden.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, boil the milk and add sugar, salt, and flour mixed with a little cold milk.

  2. Stir in butter and beaten eggs, cooking in a double boiler until smooth.

  3. Once cool, flavor the filling with vanilla.

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. Milk + buttertop 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. Flour + buttertop 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

Eggs
Whites trapped as foam and yolks enrich the batter, giving the cake structure and tenderness.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the cake and filling their structure.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and turn light.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and filling and helps browning in the baked layers.
Milk
Forms the base of the custard filling, adding richness and moisture.
Butter
Adds fat to the filling, giving it a smooth, rich texture.

The step that matters

Cooking the filling in a double boiler until smooth. Eggs thicken gently with indirect heat. Direct high heat can scramble them and leave lumps, so the filling must be stirred over gentle heat until smooth.

Swap the vanilla

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

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

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

More cream cake recipes

Ice 127Sour 42Almond 41Whipped 36Boston 35French 34 See all 226 →

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes