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 ↓
Cream Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Cream the butter with the powdered sugar until smooth.
Add the milk and mix well.
Fold in the stiffened egg whites alternately with enough flour to make a good batter, starting with 2 cups.
Bake in layers.
Make the filling
For the filling, heat 1 cup of milk until boiling.
Thicken the boiling milk with 3 tablespoons of flour mixed with a little water.
Remove from heat after boiling for 1 minute.
Pour the thickened milk over the beaten egg yolks mixed with ½ cup of powdered sugar.
Stir over low heat until smooth and thick.
Let cool and spread between the layers of cake.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 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
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
- Egg whites
- Whipped and folded in to lighten the batter and help the cake rise.
- Flour
- Forms the cake's structure and, in the filling, thickens the milk.
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the filling as they cook and add richness and smoothness.
- Milk
- Adds moisture to the batter and forms the base of the custard filling.
The step that matters
Stirring the filling over low heat. Egg yolks can scramble if overheated, so stirring gently over low heat keeps the filling smooth while the starch and yolks thicken it evenly.
“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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