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Dessert

Mary Ann's Cream Cake

A layered cake made from a batter of water, butter, flour, eggs, and a cream of milk, eggs, sugar, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 choux 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 7 eggs.

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

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

Make the cream

  1. Combine the milk, 4 eggs, sugar, and flour in a pot for the cream.

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

  3. Stir in the milk while boiling.

  4. 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

Eggs
Bind the mixture and add structure as they set during baking.
Flour
Provides starch that thickens the mixture and gives the cake its structure.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, contributing tenderness and flavor to the base.
Milk
Adds liquid and dairy richness, thickening the cream as it heats.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cream set with a soft, smooth texture.

The step that matters

Stir in the milk while boiling. Starch in the flour must be cooked through while the mixture is hot and stirred, or the cream stays pasty and may lump. Stirring prevents scorching and lumps as the mixture thickens.

“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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