Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
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.
Prepare the cake layers
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, mix 1 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons cold water, 1½ cups flour, and 1 teaspoon flavoring.
Divide the batter into 2 jelly pans and bake until golden.
Make the filling
In a saucepan, bring 1 pint milk to a boil.
In a separate bowl, beat together 1 cup sugar, 2 eggs, and a small piece of butter.
Add the egg mixture to the boiling milk and stir until it thickens, but do not let it boil again to avoid curdling.
Once thickened, remove from heat and let cool, then add flavoring.
Assemble
Split the cakes in half and spread the filling between the layers.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Thicken the custard filling as they set when gently heated.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake crumb together.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown as it bakes.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the custard filling and adds moisture.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat to the custard filling.
The step that matters
Thickening the milk and egg mixture. Egg proteins set when heated, but if the custard boils again they can curdle and turn grainy. Stir gently and remove from heat as soon as it thickens.
“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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