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Dessert

Cream Cake

A baked cake with a creamy custard topping made from eggs, sugar, milk, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Cream Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the cake

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs and sugar together.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk and add it to the egg mixture.

  4. Sift the cream of tartar, salt, and flour together, then mix into the wet ingredients.

  5. Pour the batter into jelly tins and bake for 15 minutes.

Make the cream

  1. For the cream, boil the milk with vanilla extract.

  2. Once boiling, stir in the eggs, sugar, and cornstarch until well combined.

  3. Cook until thick, then stir in the butter before 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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
Beaten with sugar to give the batter structure and lift when baked.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidic ingredient that reacts with the baking soda and helps the crumb rise and stay tender.
Cornstarch
Thickens the cream as it cooks, giving it a smooth, set texture.
Butter
Stirred into the cooked cream to add richness and a smooth, glossy finish.

The step that matters

Cook the cream until thick. Cornstarch thickens only when the mixture reaches a full simmer and is stirred, so stopping early leaves the cream runny. Stirring also keeps the eggs from scrambling in the hot milk.

“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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