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Dessert

Caramel Filling for Cake

A caramel filling made from brown sugar, cream, butter, and vanilla, served over a layer cake.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and milk 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 Filling for Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, combine brown sugar and cream.

  2. Cook until it reaches a candy stage.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in butter and vanilla extract.

Make and bake the cake

  1. For the cake, cream together eggs and butter, then add sugar.

  2. Mix in flour, sweet milk, and baking powder until smooth.

  3. Bake the cake according to your preferred method.

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 + milktop 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brown sugar
Forms the caramel base, providing sweetness and deep flavour as it cooks.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture to the caramel, giving it a smooth, soft texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, softening the caramel and enriching the cake crumb.
Eggs
Provide structure and richness to the cake batter when creamed with butter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and turn light.

The step that matters

Cook until it reaches a candy stage. Sugar cooked to the candy stage has a precise concentration and temperature. Undercooked caramel stays runny and fails to set, while overcooked caramel turns bitter and burnt. Watch the change closely as the sugar darkens.

“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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