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Dessert

Cream-cakes

Cream cakes are buttery pastries with a custard filling.

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

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 choux paste

  1. In a bowl, rub together the butter, flour, sugar, and salt until smooth.

  2. Stir in the boiling milk and cook over heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens.

  3. Set aside to cool.

  4. Once cool, break in the eggs one at a time, stirring well after each addition.

  5. Dissolve the baking soda in the cream and add it to the mixture.

Shape and bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls onto buttered pans, shaping them into turban forms.

  2. Brush the tops with a beaten egg using a feather.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 20 minutes.

Make the custard and fill

  1. To make the custard, boil the water and add the butter.

  2. Stir in the flour until smooth, then let it cool.

  3. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

  4. Once the cakes are done, cut one side open and fill with the custard.

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. 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. Flour + milktop 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

Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and helps the dough hold together.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the paste and custard together.
Eggs
Add structure and richness as they set during baking.
Milk
Provides moisture and helps the paste thicken when cooked.
Baking soda
Helps the cakes rise and brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Cooking the paste until it thickens. The flour must be fully cooked in the boiling milk so the paste thickens and holds its shape. Under-cooked paste can collapse or stay gummy, and it may not puff properly in the oven.

“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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