Skip to main content
Dessert

For Italian Pastry and Tipsy Cake

A cinnamon-infused cake made by mixing milk, sugar, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,655 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

For Italian Pastry and Tipsy Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Heat the milk

  1. Boil the milk, sugar, and cinnamon together.

Make the custard

  1. Whisk the eggs well in a separate bowl.

  2. Pour the boiling milk mixture over the eggs while whisking continuously.

  3. Stir the mixture over low heat until it begins to boil.

  4. Remove from heat and place the saucepan in cold water, stirring until cooled.

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 + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Set the custard as their proteins coagulate with gentle heat, giving it body and structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and supplies moisture for a tender set.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the eggs and milk.
Cinnamon
Contributes a warm aroma to the milk as it is infused by boiling.

The step that matters

Stir the mixture over low heat until it begins to boil. Egg proteins set at moderate temperatures and curdle if overheated. Low heat with constant stirring lets the custard thicken smoothly without scrambling the eggs.

“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.

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipes