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Dessert

Ice Cream Cake

A cake topped with a sugar icing made from boiled syrup and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Ice 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.

Make the cake

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add flour, sweet milk, baking powder, and whites of 10 eggs. Mix well.

  4. Pour batter into greased cake pan and bake until toothpick comes out clean.

Make the icing

  1. For icing, boil water and 4 cups sugar to make a clear thick syrup.

  2. Test syrup in cold water; it should thread and break like taffy.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool slightly, then add vanilla and citric acid dissolved in a teaspoon of water.

  4. Beat whites of 4 eggs to stiff froth and fold into syrup until perfectly cold.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, fine crumb.
Flour
Builds the cake's structure as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, making the cake rise and turn light.
Whites of 10 eggs
Add structure and lift to the batter as they set in the oven.
Whites of 4 eggs
Beaten to stiff froth, they give the icing its light, airy, marshmallow-like body.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, cooked into syrup, forms the icing's clear, thick base.

The step that matters

Testing the icing syrup in cold water. Sugar syrup must reach the right concentration: if it is undercooked the icing stays runny, and if overcooked it turns hard and grainy. The thread-and-break test checks that the syrup is at the correct stage before the egg whites are folded in.

Swap the vanilla

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, flour, milk, egg):

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, milk, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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