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Dessert

Roman Cream Cake

A coconut and citrus flavored cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, and fresh grated coconut.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Roman Cream Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Grate the rinds of the oranges and lemons.

  2. Squeeze their juice into a saucepan with the sugar.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil to create a flavored syrup.

Make the filling

  1. Add the butter and grated coconut to the syrup.

  2. Boil for 5 minutes.

  3. Stir in the egg yolks and whole eggs.

  4. Cook slowly until thick.

Assemble

  1. Spread the mixture between layers of delicate 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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Coconut + orangetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together584 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Coconut + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  4. Coconut + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the filling as they cook, giving it a rich, set custard texture.
Whole eggs
Add structure and help the filling set when cooked slowly.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich mouthfeel in the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps form the flavored syrup base.
Fresh grated coconut
Adds moisture and body along with tender, chewy texture.

The step that matters

Cook slowly until thick. Egg proteins set at moderate heat; cooking too fast can overheat the eggs, causing curdling or a grainy texture instead of a smooth, thick filling.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Blackberryfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, orange, lemon, butter, 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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