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Dessert

Caramel Cake

A layered cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, caramel, vanilla, and a caramel syrup filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Caramel 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 batter

  1. Beat the butter until creamy.

  2. Gradually add the sugar, egg yolks, and water, mixing well.

  3. Add the flour and beat continuously for five minutes.

  4. Stir in the caramel, vanilla, and remaining flour.

  5. Carefully fold in the baking powder and beaten egg whites.

Bake and make the filling

  1. Bake in two layers at 350°F (175°C).

  2. For the filling, combine sugar and water in a saucepan and stir until dissolved.

  3. Boil without stirring until the syrup can spin a thread.

  4. Beat the egg white to a stiff froth, then stir in the syrup and beat hard.

  5. Add the caramel and vanilla, then spread between the layers and 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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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 create a tender, aerated crumb structure.
Egg yolks
Add richness and emulsify the batter for a smooth, tender texture.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its gluten and starch set in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the cake rise and become light.
Egg whites
Beaten to foam, they trap air that lifts the batter and gives a light crumb.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup without stirring until it spins a thread. Stirring a boiling sugar syrup can cause crystals to form, making the filling grainy. Cooking it to the thread stage concentrates the sugar so the frosting-like filling sets properly.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillathe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Lemonfits less well

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

More caramel cake recipes

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