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Dessert

Pink Cream Cake

A layered cake made with eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder, fruit coloring, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Pink 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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until the mixture is the consistency of batter.

  3. Add the cold water, flour, and baking powder, and mix until smooth.

  4. Add the fruit coloring to the dough until the desired color is achieved.

Bake and assemble

  1. Divide the batter into three layers and bake until golden.

  2. Once cooled, fill the layers with whipped cream that is sweetened and flavored.

  3. Serve the cake the same day and keep it in the refrigerator.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Beaten with sugar to trap air, giving the cake its light structure.
All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the layers their structure.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the layers rise.
Pulverized sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the eggs whip to a stable foam.
Whipped cream
Adds moisture and richness between the layers.

The step that matters

Beating the eggs and sugar to batter consistency. Whipping eggs with sugar traps air that gives the layers lift. If the mixture is under-beaten, the cake bakes dense and flat, so beat until it is thick and pale before adding the liquid and flour.

“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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