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Dessert

Cream Layer Cake

A layered cake with butter, sugar, milk, eggs, baking powder, flour, vanilla, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Cream Layer 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 batter

  1. Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add sweet milk, beaten eggs, baking powder, and enough flour to form a good batter. Flavor with vanilla and mix well.

Bake and cool

  1. Pour batter into layer cake pans and bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Let the layers cool completely.

Assemble

  1. Whip the cream until stiff, sweeten to taste, and flavor as desired.

  2. Spread the whipped cream between the cooled 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Sugar
Creams with butter to aerate the batter and adds sweetness and gentle browning.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter set around the trapped air.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the layers rise and become light.
Flour
Forms the batter's main structure, setting as the cake bakes.
Cream
Whipped until stiff, it adds moisture and a light, creamy filling between the layers.

The step that matters

Cool the layers completely before filling. Warm layers melt and soften whipped cream, so it slides off or turns runny. Fully cooled layers hold the cream in place and keep the filling stable.

“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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