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Dessert

Ice Cream Cake

A baked cake made with sugar, butter, milk, flour, corn starch, baking soda, cream of tartar, egg whites, and topped with icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 batter

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

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the milk and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, corn starch, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until smooth.

  6. Fold in the egg whites gently until fully incorporated.

  7. Pour the batter into layers or a loaf pan.

Bake and ice

  1. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  3. Gradually add the sugar until smooth.

  4. Spread the icing between layers or on top and sides of the loaf.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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

Eggs
Whipped whites give the batter structure and lift as the cake bakes and sets.
Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and adds richness and a tender crumb.
Flour
Forms the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Corn starch
Softens the crumb by diluting the flour's gluten, giving a finer, lighter texture.
Cream of tartar
Stabilizes whipped egg whites and helps them hold their volume.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidic ingredients to produce gas that helps the cake rise.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites hold the air that lifts the cake. Stirring them in vigorously knocks out air and can make the cake dense, so fold gently until just combined.

“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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