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Dessert

Cream Cake

A cake made with sugar, flour, eggs, baking soda, cream of tartar, milk, sweet milk, custard, and flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. Beat the egg whites and yolks separately.

  3. Mix sugar, flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda in a bowl.

  4. Add the beaten egg yolks and sweet milk to the dry ingredients.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

Bake and fill

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake until done.

  2. Once baked, carefully cut off the top of the cake.

  3. Scoop out some of the inside of the cake.

  4. In a saucepan, combine milk, egg yolks, and sugar for custard.

  5. Cook the custard in hot water until it thickens.

  6. Pour the custard into the cake and replace the top.

  7. Let the cake cool before serving.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Whipped whites trap air for lift, and yolks add richness and structure to the batter.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps give it a tender crumb and browning.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter, stabilising the whites and helping the cake rise evenly.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the batter and makes the custard filling.

The step that matters

Cook the custard in hot water until it thickens. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but if they get too hot they scramble and turn grainy. Gentle, steady heat in a water bath keeps the custard smooth.

“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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