Skip to main content
Dessert

Whipped-cream Cake

A light cake made with flour, baking powder, salt, butter, egg, sugar, water, and topped with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Whipped-cream Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together three times.

  2. Rub the butter into the flour until well combined.

  3. In a bowl, beat the egg and sugar together, then slowly add the water.

  4. Pour the egg mixture into the flour and beat until smooth and foamy, about five minutes.

Bake and assemble

  1. Fill two shallow layer-cake pans halfway with the batter.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400 °F (200 °C) until golden.

  3. Once cooled, layer the whipped cream between the cake layers and on top.

  4. Chill for several hours before serving.

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

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

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

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Large egg
Adds structure and helps the batter set and bind during baking.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and stay tender.
Unsalted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavor in the crumb.
Heavy cream
Whipped to stiff peaks, it adds moisture and a light, creamy filling.

The step that matters

Beating the egg mixture into the flour. Beating until smooth and foamy traps air and develops the batter's structure, which helps the cake rise evenly. Under-beating leaves a dense cake, while overmixing can make it tough.

“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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes