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 ↓
Ice 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, cream together powdered sugar and butter.
Add sweet milk, flour, and baking powder; mix well.
Fold in beaten egg whites last.
Divide the batter into two layers and bake until golden.
Make the icing
For the icing, combine granulated sugar and boiling water in a pan over heat.
Boil until the mixture is clear and forms a soft ball in cold water.
Beat the 4 egg whites until light, then slowly pour in the boiling syrup.
Flavor and beat until cold and stiff.
Assemble
Spread the icing between the cake layers and on top.
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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 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).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour 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
- Butter
- Creams with the sugar to add fat and tenderness to the crumb.
- Egg whites
- Beaten whites add air and lightness to the batter, and build the stiff icing.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake's rise and crumb together.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter to help the layers rise.
- Granulated sugar
- Dissolves in boiling water to make a syrup that sets into the icing.
The step that matters
Pouring the boiling syrup into the egg whites. Pour the hot syrup slowly while beating. Adding it too fast can cook the egg whites unevenly or deflate them, leaving the icing loose instead of stiff and glossy.
“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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