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Dessert

French Cream Cake

A custard cake made with milk, eggs, sugar, butter, and vanilla, baked in pie or jelly pans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

French 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.

Prepare the cake

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

  2. Mix cold water and baking powder in a bowl.

Make the custard

  1. Boil sweet milk in a saucepan for the custard.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix corn starch with ½ cup sweet milk and add beaten eggs.

  3. Once the milk boils, gradually stir in the sugar, corn starch, and egg mixture.

  4. Stir briskly until thickened, then add butter and vanilla, stirring until dissolved.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake the cake in pie pans or jelly pans, then split while warm.

  2. Spread the hot custard between the cake layers.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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
Add structure and richness to the custard as they set with heat.
Corn starch
Thickens the custard into a smooth, spreadable filling as it heats.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel to the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps give it a smooth texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to help the cake rise and become light.

The step that matters

Stir the custard briskly until thickened. Corn starch must be heated while stirring so its granules swell and thicken the custard evenly. Stirring keeps the eggs from clumping or scrambling 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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