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Dessert

Whipped-cream Cake

A simple cake made with sugar, eggs, butter, milk, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, topped with whipped sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Whipped-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

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

  2. In a bowl, beat together the sugar, eggs, butter, and milk until well combined.

  3. Add the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar, mixing until smooth.

Bake and top

  1. Pour the batter into a small dripping pan and bake until golden.

  2. While the cake cools, whip the sweet cream to stiff peaks, sweetening and flavoring to taste.

  3. Once the cake is cool, spread the whipped cream over the top.

  4. Serve fresh for best 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake crumb as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the cake.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so the baking soda reacts and helps the cake rise.
Sweet cream
Whipped to stiff peaks, it forms the airy topping that adds moisture and richness.

The step that matters

Whipping the sweet cream to stiff peaks. Cream must be whipped until it holds stiff peaks without going grainy or turning to butter. Under-whipped cream spreads loosely and runs off the cake, while over-whipping separates it. Keeping the cream cold helps it whip well.

“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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