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Dessert

Cream Rose Cake

A layered cake made with egg whites, butter, powdered sugar, cream, flour, baking powder, vanilla, cochineal coloring, coconut filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and coconut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,294 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Cream Rose 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. Whisk the egg whites until stiff.

  2. In a large bowl, cream the butter and gradually add the powdered sugar.

  3. Mix in the cream and vanilla extract.

  4. Sift together the flour and baking powder, then gradually add to the butter mixture.

  5. Color the batter with cochineal powder as desired.

Bake and cool

  1. Pour the batter into jelly tins and bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

  2. Let the cakes cool completely.

Fill and assemble

  1. For the filling, whisk the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add the powdered sugar.

  2. Fold in the grated coconut.

  3. Spread the filling between the layers of cake.

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. Vanilla + coconuttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,294 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

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
Whisked to stiffness, they trap air and give the cake a light, airy structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and a tender crumb.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps create a fine, soft texture.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake once its proteins set in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the heat, causing the batter to rise and become lighter.
Grated coconut
Adds moisture, chewiness and a sweet, nutty flavor to the filling.

The step that matters

Whisk the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be beaten to stiff peaks without any trace of fat or yolk, since fat stops them foaming. Well-whipped whites hold air that lifts the batter, so under-whipped or greasy whites make a dense cake.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Raisinfits about as well
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Coconutthe original
  4. Strawberryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, sugar, 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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