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Baking

Cream Cakes

A baked cake made with sugar, baking powder, milk, flour, topped with whipped cream and desiccated coconut.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and coconut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,294 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Cream Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix sugar, baking powder, and milk.

  3. Add flour gradually until a stiff batter forms.

  4. Spoon the batter into patty pans.

Bake and fill

  1. Bake until golden brown.

  2. Remove from the oven and cut a cone-shaped hole in the center of each cake.

  3. Fill the hole with whipped cream.

  4. Sprinkle desiccated coconut on top.

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. Vanilla + coconuttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,294 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

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

Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown as they bake.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, making the cakes rise and turn light.
Milk
Provides moisture that hydrates the flour and forms the batter.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the batter into a cake.
Whipped cream
Adds moisture and richness to the filling in the cake's center.

The step that matters

Cut the cone-shaped hole after baking. Cutting while the cakes are still hot can crumble them and collapse the cavity. Letting them cool slightly keeps the walls firm enough to hold the cream filling.

Swap the coconut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk, flour, cream, vanilla):

  1. Raisinfits about as well
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Strawberryfits about as well
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, flour, cream, vanilla. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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