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Cream Filling for Layer Cake

A sweet cream filling for layer cakes made with sugar, raisins, egg, corn starch, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Cream Filling for Layer Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the raisin base

  1. In a saucepan, combine sugar and a little water; boil until brittle when dropped in cold water.

  2. Remove from heat and quickly stir in the well-beaten egg white.

  3. Add the chopped raisins and mix well.

Make the custard

  1. In another bowl, mix the egg, corn starch, sugar, and half of the milk.

  2. Heat the remaining milk until boiling, then stir it into the egg mixture until it boils.

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. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Raisin + corntop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together180 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Raisin + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the filling and forms the syrup that is boiled into the base.
Egg white
Stirred into the hot syrup, it adds body and a light, airy texture to the base.
Egg
Heated with the starch and milk, it helps thicken and enrich the custard.
Corn starch
Thickens the custard when heated to a full boil.
Milk
Provides the liquid and creamy moisture for the custard.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness to the filling.

The step that matters

Bringing the custard to a full boil. Adding the hot milk gradually while stirring keeps the egg from scrambling, and the mixture must reach a full boil so the corn starch thickens the cream evenly.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

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