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Dessert

French Cream Cake

A layered cake made from beaten eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder, and a thickened milk‑egg custard cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

French Cream Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sponge

  1. Beat 3 eggs and 1 cup of sugar together, then add 2 tablespoons of cold water.

  2. Stir 1 teaspoon of baking powder into 1 cup of flour, then sift it in while stirring continuously in one direction.

  3. Bake in greased tins.

Make the cream and assemble

  1. For the cream, combine 1 pint of milk, 2 eggs, 1 tablespoon of cornstarch, and ½ cup of sugar in a saucepan, then stir over heat until thickened.

  2. Add a piece of butter the size of a walnut and vanilla extract to taste.

  3. Cut the cakes into layers and spread the cream while both are hot.

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. Walnut + vanillatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,730 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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
Beaten with sugar to trap air, giving the sponge its light structure.
All-purpose flour
Forms the sponge's main structure once set by heat.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises in the tins.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the cream that thickens on heating.
Cornstarch
Thickens the cream as it heats, giving it a smooth, spreadable body.
Sugar
Sweetens the sponge and cream, and helps the eggs hold their foam.

The step that matters

Stir the cream over heat until thickened. Cornstarch thickens only when heated and stirred, and the eggs can scramble if the heat is too high or stirring stops. Stirring constantly keeps the cream smooth and evenly set.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

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