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Dessert

Olden Cream Cake

A light, sweet cake made with sugar, butter, milk, eggs, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and vanilla.

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 ↓

Olden 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 together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the sweet milk and beaten egg whites.

  3. Sift the flour with baking soda and cream of tartar, then add to the mixture.

Bake and fill

  1. Bake in three deep jelly tins at 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat the egg yolks with sugar and sweet cream until light. Flavor with vanilla and spread on the cakes.

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. Butter + creamtop 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
Egg whites add structure and lift; yolks add richness and tenderness to the filling.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb once baked.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep it moist and tender.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda to help the cake rise.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites. Beaten egg whites trap air that expands in the oven and gives the cake its lift. Under-beaten whites produce a dense cake, while over-beaten whites can collapse or dry out.

“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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