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Dessert

Golden Cream Cake

A cake made with sugar, butter, sweet milk, egg whites, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and frosted with cream and egg yolk mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Golden Cream 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.

Make the cake

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the sweet milk and beaten egg whites.

  3. Mix in the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

  4. Bake in three deep jelly tins at 350°F (175°C).

Make and spread the frosting

  1. For the frosting, beat the egg yolks with sugar and cream, adding vanilla.

  2. Spread the frosting on the cooled cakes.

  3. Alternatively, cook the yolks with corn starch, sweet milk, and butter until thick, then cool and spread.

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. Butter + creamtop 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. Vanilla + corntop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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 whites trap air, helping the cake rise and turn light.
Flour
Starch and proteins set during baking to form the cake's structure.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidic ingredient that stabilizes the whites and helps the leavening react.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Egg yolks
Add richness and emulsify the frosting, giving it a smooth, thick body.

The step that matters

Bake in three deep jelly tins at 350°F (175°C). Baking soda needs the batter to be mixed and into the oven promptly, since its gas release fades over time. Even layers need equal batter in each tin and an even oven, or the cakes may rise unevenly or dry out at the edges.

“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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