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Dessert

Caramel Cake

A layered cake with caramel frosting made from sugar, butter, milk, flour, eggs, baking powder, gelatin, and vanilla.

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

Caramel 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.

Prepare the cake

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

  2. In a bowl, combine sugar, butter, milk, flour, and baking powder.

  3. Divide the cake batter into two portions.

  4. Beat the egg yolks and whites separately.

  5. Add the yolks to one portion of the batter and the whites to the other.

  6. Flavor the yellow batter with vanilla and the white batter with lemon.

  7. Pour the batters into separate layer cake tins and bake until golden.

Make the frosting

  1. For the frosting, combine dark brown sugar and white sugar in a saucepan.

  2. In a separate bowl, dissolve Knox Gelatin in ¾ cup warm milk.

  3. Add butter to the gelatin mixture and boil for 5 minutes, stirring frequently.

  4. Flavor with vanilla and beat slightly after removing from heat.

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. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Egg yolks and whites add structure and richness to the cake crumb when beaten.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake batter as it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the layers rise and turn light.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in both the cake and the frosting.
Knox gelatin
Sets the frosting so it holds its shape once cooled.

The step that matters

Boil the frosting for 5 minutes while stirring. Boiling dissolves the sugars fully and controls how much water evaporates, which sets the final texture. Stirring keeps the mixture from scorching on the bottom of the pan.

“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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