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Dessert

French Cream Cake

A layered cake with a custard filling made from eggs, sugar, milk, butter, 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 ↓

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.

Make the cake

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

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until well combined.

  3. Add the flour, cold water, and baking powder, mixing until smooth.

  4. Pour the batter into pie pans and bake until golden.

Make the custard

  1. For the custard, boil the sweet milk in a saucepan.

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

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

  4. Continue stirring until thickened, then add the butter and vanilla.

Assemble

  1. Spread the hot custard between the split cakes or 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
Bind the batter and, beaten into the custard, help it thicken and set.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb once baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Corn starch
Thickens the custard as it heats, giving it a smooth, spreadable body.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished custard.
Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, which thickens as it cooks.

The step that matters

Stir the custard as it thickens. Cornstarch must be stirred continuously while heating; it thickens as its starch granules swell in hot liquid, and if left still it can scorch on the bottom or form lumps before the mixture is evenly smooth.

“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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