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Dessert

French Cream Cake

A layered cake with a custard filling made from eggs, milk, sugar, butter, and cornstarch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

French Cream 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 cake batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together 1 cup of sugar and ½ cup of butter.

  3. Add 3 eggs and mix well.

  4. Stir in 2 tablespoons of cold water and 1 teaspoon of baking powder.

  5. Gradually add 1½ cups of flour until the batter reaches a usual consistency.

  6. Pour the batter into pie pans or jelly pans and bake until golden.

Make the custard

  1. For the custard, dissolve 2 tablespoons of cornstarch in a little milk.

  2. Heat 1 pint of milk until boiling, then add 1 cup of sugar, the dissolved cornstarch, and 2 beaten eggs, stirring briskly.

  3. Add ½ cup of butter and 1 teaspoon of vanilla, stirring until dissolved.

Assemble

  1. Spread the hot custard between the split cakes or over the top.

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

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Eggs
Add structure, moisture and richness to the batter and the custard.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cakes rise and turn lighter.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and enriches the flavour.
Cornstarch
Swells with heat to thicken the milk custard into a spreadable filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and custard and helps keep the crumb tender.

The step that matters

Thickening the custard. Cornstarch only thickens fully once the milk mixture reaches a boil. Stirring briskly keeps the starch evenly dispersed, preventing lumps and scorching on the base of the pan.

Swap the vanilla

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

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

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