Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
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 3 eggs with 1 cup sugar and 2 tablespoons cold water.
Gradually add 1½ cups flour and 1 teaspoon flavoring, mixing until smooth.
Pour the batter into 2 jelly pans and bake until golden.
Make the cream filling
In a saucepan, bring 1 pint milk to a boil.
In a separate bowl, beat together 1 cup sugar, 2 eggs, and a small piece of butter.
Add the egg mixture to the boiling milk and stir until it thickens, but do not let it boil again.
Remove from heat and let cool, then add flavoring.
Assemble
Once the cakes are cool, split them in half and spread the cream filling between the 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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter 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
- Eggs
- Beaten eggs give the sponge its structure and help it rise and set.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the cake once baked.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the cream filling, which thickens when the egg mixture is stirred in.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and the cream filling and adds tenderness to the batter.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat to the cream filling.
The step that matters
Add the egg mixture to the boiling milk and stir until it thickens, but do not let it boil again.. The eggs thicken the custard as they heat. If the mixture boils again, the egg proteins can curdle and scramble, leaving the filling grainy and thin.
“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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