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Dessert

Whipped Cream Cake

A light cake topped with whipped sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Whipped Cream Cake

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Whipped 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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and soft butter.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks and mix well.

  4. Stir in the milk and flavoring.

  5. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  6. Mix the cream of tartar and baking soda into the flour, then sift it into the batter and stir lightly.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into a small dripping pan and bake until golden.

  2. Once the cake is cool, whip the sweet cream until stiff and sweetened, adding flavoring as desired.

  3. Spread the whipped cream over the cake while it is fresh.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Egg yolks enrich the batter, while beaten whites add lift and an airy crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps give the creamed batter a tender texture.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the cream of tartar to help the cake rise.
Sweet cream
Forms the whipped topping that adds moisture and richness to the cake.

The step that matters

Sift the leavening into the batter and stir lightly. Overmixing after the flour is added develops gluten and deflates the air in the batter, leading to a tough, dense cake. Gentle stirring keeps the whipped whites' lift and the leavening's rise intact.

“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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