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Dessert

Filling for Cream Cakes

A custard-like filling made from milk, corn starch, eggs, sugar, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Filling for Cream Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dissolve corn starch in cold water.

  2. Stir the dissolved corn starch into the scalded milk and cook for 3 minutes.

  3. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl, then add sugar and butter.

Cook the filling

  1. Combine the egg mixture with the milk mixture and cook for 15 minutes in a double boiler.

  2. Add flavoring to taste.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Corn starch
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth, sliceable filling as it cooks.
Eggs
Add richness and help set the filling as they cook with the milk.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and adds body to the custard.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer texture and mouthfeel.
Milk
Forms the base of the filling, which thickens as it cooks.

The step that matters

Combine the egg mixture with the milk mixture and cook for 15 minutes in a double boiler. Eggs can curdle or scramble if they meet hot liquid too quickly or get too hot. Gentle heat in a double boiler, with steady stirring, lets the starch and egg proteins thicken the filling smoothly.

“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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