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Dessert

Cream Layer Cake

A layered cake with a sweet cream filling, made from egg whites, sugar, flour, baking powder, vanilla, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Cream Layer 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 batter

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

  2. In a bowl, rub the cream or butter with the sugar until light.

  3. Add the egg whites, flour, baking powder, and vanilla; mix gently until fully combined.

  4. Pour the batter into layer cake pans and bake until golden.

Fill and serve

  1. Once cooled, layer the cakes with whipped cream sweetened and flavored to taste.

  2. Serve immediately as the cake does not keep well.

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

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

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

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

  3. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

Egg whites
Whipped into the batter to give the cake its light, airy structure.
Flour
Forms the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the layers rise and become tender.
Sugar
Creamed with the fat to add sweetness and help the batter brown.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and moisture to the batter, tenderizing the crumb.

The step that matters

Mix gently after adding the egg whites, flour, and baking powder. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, which makes the cake tough and dense instead of tender. Gentle folding keeps the air from the egg whites and the rise from the baking powder.

Swap the vanilla

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

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

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