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Dessert

Ice Cream Cake

A layered cake with butter, sugar, milk, eggs, flour, baking powder, vanilla, and a creamy frosting of egg yolks, sugar, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the sweet milk, beaten egg whites, flour, baking powder, and vanilla; mix well.

  3. Divide the batter into three layers.

Bake

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

Frost and finish

  1. Beat the egg yolks with sugar and vanilla for 15 minutes until creamy.

  2. Spread the frosting on each layer and on top of the cake.

  3. Return the cake to the oven for a few minutes until the frosting is slightly set.

  4. Let the cake cool; the frosting will firm up as it cools.

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

Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake crumb as its proteins set with heat.
Eggs
Egg whites add lift and structure, while yolks add richness and tenderness.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep the crumb tender and browned.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the batter rise.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture to the batter and helps it blend into a smooth mixture.

The step that matters

Return the cake to the oven briefly. Only a few minutes are needed to set the frosting. Extra heat over longer time can dry the cake and brown the frosting too much.

Swap the vanilla

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

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

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