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Dessert

Cream Cake

A layered cake with custard filling and boiled icing.

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 batter

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

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

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

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour and baking powder, then gradually add to the creamed mixture, alternating with the milk.

Bake and make the custard

  1. Divide the batter evenly into 6 layers and bake until golden.

  2. For the custard, heat 1 pint of milk in a saucepan.

  3. In a separate bowl, whisk together 2 eggs, ½ cup sugar, and 4 teaspoons cornstarch.

  4. Slowly add the hot milk to the egg mixture, stirring constantly, then return to the saucepan and cook until thickened.

  5. Flavor the custard with vanilla.

Assemble

  1. Once the cakes are cooled, layer them with custard filling and top with boiled icing.

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. Milk + buttertop 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. Flour + buttertop 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and thicken the custard, giving structure to both.
Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air, giving the batter a tender crumb and richness.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake layers as the batter sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the layers rise and turn light.
Cornstarch
Thickens the custard filling when heated with the milk and egg mixture.
Milk
Adds moisture to the batter and forms the base of the thick custard.

The step that matters

Cook the custard until thickened. Stirring the hot milk into the eggs gently, then cooking, lets the cornstarch swell and the egg proteins set. Stop heating once it is thick, since overcooking can curdle the eggs and leave the filling grainy or thin.

Swap the vanilla

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

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

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