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Dessert

Filling for Cream Cake

A sweet cream filling made with cream, corn starch, sugar, egg yolk, vanilla, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and milk 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 ↓

Filling for Cream Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Heat the cream in a small saucepan over a double boiler.

  2. Mix the corn starch with a little cold milk, then stir the corn starch mixture into the cream.

  3. Cook until it boils for 2 minutes.

  4. Add the sugar.

  5. Beat the egg yolk with a spoonful of cold milk, then stir the beaten yolk into the mixture.

  6. Remove from heat.

Finish and cool

  1. Beat the egg whites with ½ teaspoon sugar until stiff.

  2. Fold the beaten egg whites into the mixture.

  3. Add the vanilla extract.

  4. Let the filling cool before using.

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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

Sweet cream
Provides the rich fat and body that make up most of the filling.
Corn starch
Thickens the cream as it heats and boils, giving the filling its set.
Egg
The yolk enriches and thickens the filling, and the whites are folded in for lightness.
White granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the cream.

The step that matters

Cooking the starch mixture to a full boil. Corn starch only thickens fully when it reaches a boil and is held there briefly, so stopping early leaves the filling thin. Egg yolk added to hot mixture can scramble if it is not tempered first, which is why it is beaten with cold milk before stirring in.

“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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