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Dessert

Ice Cream Cake

A cake with a whipped egg white filling flavored with almond and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. 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

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

  2. In a bowl, beat 5 eggs and add 2 ½ cups flour, 1 cup sugar, ¼ pound butter, ½ cup milk, and 1 heaping teaspoon baking powder.

  3. Mix until smooth and add almond extract to taste.

  4. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake until golden.

Make the filling and assemble

  1. For the filling, beat 4 egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Gradually add 6 tablespoons powdered sugar and vanilla extract to taste, mixing well.

  3. Once the cake is cool, spread the filling between the 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. Almond + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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
Provide structure and richness as the batter sets while baking.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they form the light, airy structure of the filling.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the cake.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the filling and dissolves smoothly into the whipped whites.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites hold air only when whipped fully and kept free of grease or yolk. Underbeaten whites collapse, and overbeaten whites turn dry and grainy, so the filling loses its airy texture.

“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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