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Dessert

Custard Cake

A cake made with sugar, butter, eggs, flour, milk, baking soda, cream of tartar, and a custard filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Custard 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the cake batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and melted butter.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks and mix well.

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, alternating with the milk.

  6. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then fold them into the batter.

Bake and make the custard

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 25-30 minutes.

  2. For the custard, heat ½ pint of milk in a saucepan.

  3. In a bowl, whisk together 2 eggs and sugar to taste, then add to the warm milk.

  4. Flavor with vanilla and cook until thickened, stirring constantly.

Assemble

  1. Once the cake is cooled, slice it and layer the custard between the slices.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Whites trapped as stiff peaks lighten the batter and help the cake rise and set.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake once its proteins set in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness, tenderness and flavor to the cake crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter, stabilizing the whipped whites and aiding the rise with baking soda.
Milk
Moistens the batter and, in the custard, thickens into a creamy base as it heats.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard until thickened. Egg proteins thicken the milk only up to a point; overheating or stopping early can curdle the eggs or leave the custard runny. Stirring constantly spreads heat evenly and prevents scorching on the pan base.

“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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