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Dessert

Cream Cake

A layered cake with a custard filling made from milk, eggs, sugar, and cornstarch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 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

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

  2. Cream together the powdered sugar and butter.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Stir in the milk and baking powder.

  5. Gradually add the flour until well combined.

  6. Pour the batter into thin layers.

  7. Bake until golden.

Make the custard

  1. Heat ½ pint of milk in a saucepan for the filling.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix cornstarch with a little cold milk.

  3. Add the cornstarch mixture to the hot milk and stir until boiling.

  4. In another bowl, beat the egg and sugar together.

  5. Take a small amount of the hot mixture and mix it with the beaten egg.

  6. Return the egg mixture to the saucepan.

  7. Cook until thick, stirring constantly.

  8. Let the custard cool.

  9. Stir in the vanilla extract.

Assemble

  1. Spread the cooled custard between the layers of cake.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 give the cake tenderness and a rich flavor.
Eggs
Add structure and richness to the batter as they set during baking.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake that holds its shape.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Cornstarch
Thickens the custard filling as it heats with the milk.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg mixture into the custard. Eggs can scramble if added directly to hot liquid, so tempering them with a little hot mixture first and then cooking gently while stirring keeps the custard smooth and thick.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

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

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