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Dessert

Custard Cake

A baked cake with a sweet custard filling.

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 ↓

Custard Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Sift together sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt four times.

  2. Beat the eggs separately.

  3. Add cold water and mix well.

  4. Combine the egg mixture with the sifted dry ingredients. Mix until smooth.

Make the custard filling

  1. For the filling, cook together sugar, flour, eggs, and milk until thickened.

  2. Remove from heat and flavor with vanilla extract.

  3. Cool slightly before using.

Bake and assemble

  1. Pour the batter into two layers.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  3. While hot, split the layers.

  4. Fill the layers with the custard filling.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Eggs
Bind the batter and thicken the custard filling as they set with heat.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake crumb and thickens the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the cake tender and moist.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the layers rise in the oven.
Milk
Adds moisture and body to the custard filling as it thickens.

The step that matters

Cook the custard filling until thickened. Eggs and flour thicken the milk only when heated enough; undercooked custard stays runny, while overheating can curdle the eggs. Stir steadily and remove from heat once thick.

Swap the vanilla

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

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

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