Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. 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.
Make the cake
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, beat together sugar, baking powder, flour, eggs, and sweet cream until well combined.
Divide the batter into three layers and bake until golden.
Make the filling
For the filling, heat the milk in a saucepan until it boils.
In a separate bowl, beat together eggs, sugar, and corn starch mixed with a little cold milk.
Once the milk boils, stir in the egg mixture and cook until thickened.
Remove from heat and let cool, then flavor to taste.
Assemble
Spread the filling between the cooled cake 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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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + corntop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Flour + corntop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,165 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).
Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 thicken the custard filling as they cook.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the cake batter as it bakes.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter so the layers rise and turn light.
- Corn starch
- Thickens the milk mixture so the filling sets smooth and spreadable.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and filling and helps browning.
The step that matters
Cooking the filling until thickened. Corn starch thickens only when the hot milk mixture reaches a boil and is cooked for a moment; undercooked filling stays thin and runny, while the egg mixture must be stirred in carefully to avoid scrambling.
“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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