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Dessert

French Cream Cake

A layered cake with a custard filling made from eggs, milk, sugar, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

French 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 the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the sugar until well combined.

  3. Add the flour, cold water, and baking powder, and mix until smooth.

  4. Pour the batter into two pie pans or four jelly pans and bake until golden.

Make the custard

  1. For the custard, boil the sweet milk in a saucepan.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the cornstarch with ½ cup sweet milk and add the beaten eggs.

  3. Once the milk is boiling, gradually stir in the sugar and the cornstarch mixture.

  4. Continue stirring briskly until the custard thickens.

  5. Remove from heat and stir in the butter and vanilla until melted.

Assemble

  1. Spread the hot custard between the split cakes.

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. Milk + buttertop 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. Flour + buttertop 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and enrich the custard, helping it set as it cooks.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth custard as it heats.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel to the custard.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and custard and helps the cake brown.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to lift the cake as it bakes.

The step that matters

Stirring the custard as it thickens. Cornstarch must be stirred constantly while heating so it gelatinizes evenly; if left still it scorches on the bottom or forms lumps before the custard is smooth.

Swap the vanilla

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour, milk, butter. 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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