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Dessert

Cream-cake Filling

A custard-like filling made from milk, egg, sugar, corn starch, and vanilla, used between cake layers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Cream-cake Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan.

  2. In a small bowl, mix the corn-starch with a little cold milk until smooth.

  3. Gradually add the corn-starch mixture to the heated milk, stirring constantly.

  4. In another bowl, beat the egg lightly with the sugar.

  5. Slowly add the egg mixture to the saucepan, stirring continuously.

  6. Cook over low heat until the mixture thickens.

Finish and fill

  1. Remove from heat, cool, and spread between 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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that thickens into the filling.
Egg
Adds richness and helps set the custard as it cooks.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and softens the egg flavour.
Corn-starch
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the filling its body.

The step that matters

Cook the custard until it thickens. Starch thickens only when heated enough to swell its granules, so stopping too early leaves a runny filling. Stirring constantly and cooking over low heat keeps the egg from scrambling on the bottom of the pan.

“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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