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Dessert

Ice Cream Cake

A cake made with sugar, butter, milk, flour, baking powder, egg whites, vanilla, and topped with a vanilla icing.

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. 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.

Prepare the cake

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the milk and mix well.

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

  5. Fold in the egg whites and vanilla extract.

  6. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Make the icing and finish

  1. For the icing, beat the egg yolks until well combined.

  2. Gradually add icing sugar and vanilla extract, mixing until smooth.

  3. Once the cake is cool, spread the icing on top.

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 the sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Egg whites
Folded in to add lift and a light, airy texture.
Egg yolks
Add richness and moisture to the icing and help it set smooth.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a soft, fine texture when creamed with butter.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Egg whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps that air in the batter so the cake rises well instead of turning dense.

Swap the vanilla

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

  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, flour, egg. 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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