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Dessert

Ice Cream Cake

A light, airy cake flavored with vanilla or lemon and colored strawberry, made from egg whites, sugar, butter, milk, baking soda, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Strawberry and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,385 recipes. Both carry p-vinylguaiacol, which smells spicy, fruity. The science ↓

Ice Cream Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff.

  3. In another bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  4. Add the milk, baking soda, cream of tartar, and flour to the butter mixture.

Flavor and bake

  1. Divide the batter in half.

  2. Color one half with strawberry coloring and flavor it with vanilla.

  3. Flavor the other half with lemon extract.

  4. Pour the white batter into a greased cake pan, followed by the pink batter.

  5. Bake slowly until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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. Strawberry + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,385 recipes

    Shared aroma: p-vinylguaiacol (spicy, fruity).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

Egg whites
Beaten until stiff, they trap air that lifts and lightens the cake structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds fat that gives the cake a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Sugar
Creamed with butter, it adds sweetness and helps browning and a fine texture.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to release gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that works with the baking soda to leaven the batter and stabilize the egg whites.

The step that matters

Bake slowly until a toothpick comes out clean. Baking at a low temperature sets the batter gently so it rises evenly and cooks through without drying or browning too fast. Testing the center with a toothpick confirms the structure is fully set.

Swap the strawberry

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

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

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