Why it works: Cream and butter match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 41,494 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
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 leaven
Take 3 ounces of flour from 3/4 pound and mix it with yeast and warm cream to form a paste.
Cover and let rise near heat for 30 minutes.
Make and bake the dough
In a bowl, make a well with the remaining flour.
Add salt, sugar, egg yolks, melted butter, and warm cream.
Mix until smooth.
Flatten the mixture and incorporate the leaven.
Blend until uniform in color.
Transfer to a well-buttered cake mold and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size.
Brush the top with beaten egg and bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until lightly colored.
Remove from the mold, slice, and pour over melted butter before serving.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Cream + buttertop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together41,494 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + sugartop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together43,437 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 6% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together122,858 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + buttertop 8% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together118,511 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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Flour + eggtop 8% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together104,138 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter share little aroma chemistry, yet 122,858 recipes mention both: they likely 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
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the structure of the cake as the dough sets in the oven.
- Solid yeast
- Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness, color and tenderness, and help bind the dough.
- Unsalted butter
- Adds fat for a rich, tender crumb and a soft texture.
- Granulated sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps the crust brown lightly.
The step that matters
Letting the dough rise until doubled. Yeast needs warm conditions and enough time to produce gas. Under-proofed dough bakes up dense, while over-proofed dough may collapse in the oven.
“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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