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Dessert

Ice Cream Cake

A layered cake with a sweet cream filling made from beaten egg whites and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 layers

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

  2. In a large bowl, beat the 8 egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  3. In another bowl, mix 2 cups sugar, 2 cups flour, 1 cup corn starch, 1 cup softened butter, 1 cup milk, 2 teaspoons baking powder, and lemon extract until smooth.

  4. Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the batter.

  5. Pour the batter into thin layers and bake until golden.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, beat 4 egg whites in a bowl.

  2. In a saucepan, combine 4 cups sugar with enough boiling water to dissolve it.

  3. Boil the sugar mixture until clear and candied.

  4. Pour the hot sugar over the beaten egg whites, stirring until it forms a rich cream.

  5. Add vanilla extract to taste.

Assemble

  1. Once cooled, spread the cream between the baked layers.

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. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that lightens the layers and sets the filling into a foam.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake layers together.
Corn starch
Softens the crumb by diluting the flour's gluten, giving a tender texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the layers rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, when boiled, forms the syrup that gives the filling its body.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot sugar into the egg whites. The syrup must be boiled to the right point and poured slowly while beating. Pouring too fast or cold syrup can leave the whites grainy or prevent them from forming a stable, smooth cream.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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