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Dessert

Mary Ann's Cream Cake

A cake made from water, butter, flour, eggs, milk, sugar, and flour, baked in a greased tin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Mary Ann's Cream 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 base

  1. Boil the water in a pot.

  2. Add the butter to the boiling water and stir until melted.

  3. Stir in the flour and set aside to cool.

  4. Once cooled, mix in the eggs one at a time.

  5. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into a greased tin.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden.

Make the cream

  1. For the cream, combine the milk, eggs, sugar, and flour in a saucepan.

  2. Beat the sugar, eggs, and flour together.

  3. Stir in the milk.

  4. Cook over medium heat until boiling, stirring constantly.

  5. Flavor the cream to taste.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Flour
Starch that thickens the cream and gives the cooked base its structure.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set when heated, adding structure and richness.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Milk
Provides liquid and body for the cream.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Cook the cream over medium heat, stirring constantly. Flour-thickened mixtures can scorch on the bottom or form lumps if heated unevenly. Constant stirring spreads heat and lets the starch hydrate and thicken smoothly as it reaches a boil.

“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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