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Dessert

Ice Cream Cake

A baked cake with a stiff egg‑white icing.

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the cake

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the milk, corn starch, flour, and baking powder; mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the whites of 8 eggs until stiff peaks form, then fold into the batter.

  5. Pour the batter into jelly cake pans and bake for about 30‑35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make the icing and assemble

  1. For the icing, beat the whites of 4 eggs until very light.

  2. In a saucepan, combine 4 cups of sugar and ½ pint of boiling water; boil until clear.

  3. Pour the boiling syrup over the beaten egg whites and beat hard until the mixture is cold and forms a stiff cream.

  4. Add the vanilla extract before the icing cools completely.

  5. Spread the icing between the layers of the cooled 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. 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. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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, rich crumb.
Eggs
Whites beaten to stiff peaks lighten the batter and add structure as the cake sets.
Corn starch
Softens the crumb, giving a finer, more tender texture than flour alone.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and, boiled into syrup, forms the body of the icing.

The step that matters

Beating the boiling syrup into the egg whites. Hot syrup must be poured slowly while beating hard so it cooks the egg white proteins and forms a stable, stiff cream rather than a runny or grainy icing.

“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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