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Dessert

French Cream Cake

A layered dessert made from a baked batter and a sweetened milk‑egg cream filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Arrowroot and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 525 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

French Cream Cake

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.

Make the custard

  1. Boil the sweet milk in a saucepan.

  2. In a bowl, mix cornstarch or arrowroot with a little milk.

  3. Add the eggs and beat together.

  4. Stir the egg mixture into the boiling milk and cook until thickened.

  5. Remove from heat and stir in sugar, butter, and flavoring extract.

Bake the cakes

  1. In another bowl, combine eggs, powdered sugar, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and water.

  2. Divide the batter into two deep pie plates.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

Assemble and serve

  1. Once baked, split the cakes while warm.

  2. Fill with the cream mixture.

  3. Store in a cool place for one to two days before serving.

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. Arrowroot + flourtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together525 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + buttertop 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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  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
Set the custard and give structure and richness to the cake batter.
Cornstarch or arrowroot
Thickens the boiled milk into a smooth, sliceable cream filling.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together when split and filled.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda to help the cakes rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that lifts the cakes.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer texture in the cream filling.

The step that matters

Cook the custard until thickened. Cornstarch or arrowroot must reach a boil in the milk to fully thicken. Undercooked starch leaves the filling thin and runny, and the cream will not hold once the cakes are filled.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Leekfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Sweet potatofits about as well
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, butter, flour, cream. 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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