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 ↓
Caramel 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 batter
Cream together the butter and sugar until smooth.
Add the egg yolks one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Stir in the sweet milk.
Gradually add the sifted flour and baking powder, mixing until combined.
Bake the layers
Pour the batter into jelly tins and bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick comes out clean.
Make the caramel and assemble
For the caramel, boil the brown sugar, milk, and butter together.
Cook until it reaches a hard ball stage in cold water.
Spread the caramel between the layers of the cake once it has cooled.
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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Egg + flourtop 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 sugar to add tenderness and richness to the crumb.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness, colour and structure that helps the batter bind.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake's rise and crumb.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter to lift the cake as it bakes.
- Brown sugar
- Sweetens the caramel and adds deep molasses flavour.
The step that matters
Cooking the caramel to hard ball stage. Sugar syrup changes quickly as its water boils off, so going too far makes it hard and grainy, while stopping early leaves it too soft to set between the layers.
“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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