Name: Gold Medal French Cream Cake
Ingredients: 1 cup white sugar; 3 eggs; 1½ cups flour; 1 teaspoon baking powder; 2 tablespoons thick sweet cream; 1 teaspoon lemon or vanilla; 1 tablespoon flour (for mock cream); ½ teacup white sugar (for mock cream); 1 tablespoon butter (for mock cream); ½ pint sweet milk (or cream, preferred) (for mock cream); 1 teaspoon lemon juice (for plain frosting); 1 scant cup powdered sugar (for plain frosting); 1 cup granulated sugar (for boiled icing); ⅓ cup boiling water (for boiled icing); 1 egg white (for boiled icing); ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar (for boiled icing)

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 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: Bind the batter and give the cake its structure and richness when beaten with sugar.
Flour: Forms the cake's structure as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
White sugar: Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender crumb when creamed with eggs.
Milk or cream: Adds moisture and richness to the mock cream filling as it thickens.
Egg white: Whipped to stiff foam to give the boiled icing its light, airy texture.

The step that matters

Pour the syrup while beating the egg white. Hot syrup must be added slowly to the whipped egg white so it cooks the white into a stable, glossy foam. Pouring too fast can deflate the foam or leave it runny.

Swap the lemon

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

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Coconutfits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, flour, cream, butter, 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.

Gold Medal French Cream Cake