Skip to main content
Dessert

White Filling

A sweet cream-based filling for cakes, thickened with corn starch and flavored with hickory nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓

White Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Place the cream in a small saucepan and set it in another pan with hot water.

  2. Dissolve the corn starch in a little cold milk, add the sugar, and stir this into the hot cream until thick.

  3. Remove from heat and while hot, add the beaten egg whites.

  4. Let cool, then add the finely chopped nuts for flavor.

Assemble and ice

  1. When the cakes and filling are cold, assemble them.

  2. Ice the top and sides with Boiled Icing before it hardens, then sprinkle with chopped nut meats, using about 1 pint for the whole cake.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Corn + meattop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together414 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + corntop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

  5. Egg + meattop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet cream
Forms the thick, smooth body of the filling when heated with starch.
Corn starch
Thickens the hot cream into a stable, spreadable custard.
Egg whites
Add airy structure and lightness to the filling as it sets.
Hickory nut meats
Add crunchy texture and nutty flavor to the cooled filling.

The step that matters

Adding the egg whites while the cream is hot. The hot cream must be thick but not boiling when the beaten whites go in. Overheating can cause the egg whites to curdle or scramble, and a filling added too early or too hot will not set properly as it cools.

“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.

You might also like

Corn CakeCorn Cake90 recipesCorn Starch CakeCorn Starch Cake89 recipesCorn CakesCorn Cakes22 recipesGreen Corn PuddingGreen Corn Pudding14 recipes