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Dessert

Burned Sugar Cake

A layered cake made with sugar, butter, flour, eggs, vanilla, and caramel, baked in three layers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Burned Sugar 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 batter

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

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add cold water, flour, egg yolks, vanilla, burned syrup, and baking powder; mix well.

  4. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then fold the beaten egg whites into the batter.

  5. Divide the batter into three layers.

Make the caramel and filling

  1. Burn ½ cup sugar for the caramel.

  2. Remove the sugar from the heat and add ½ cup cold water.

  3. Return the mixture to the stove and boil until it thickens into syrup.

  4. Boil 1 cup sugar for the filling.

  5. Add 3 teaspoons of caramel to the boiling sugar.

  6. Add 1 egg white to the mixture.

  7. Mix until combined.

Bake

  1. Bake the layers until golden.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Vanilla + syruptop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  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
Egg yolks enrich the batter, and whipped whites add lightness and structure to the layers.
Butter
Creaming butter with sugar traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the layers rise and turn light.
Flour
Provides the starch and protein that set the batter into the cake's structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, when burned, adds a deep caramel flavour and colour.

The step that matters

Burn the sugar for the caramel. Sugar darkens quickly once it passes its melting point, and going too far turns it bitter. Stop at a deep amber, since the caramel flavour and colour depend on that point.

Swap the vanilla

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

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

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