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Cream for Cream Cakes

A thickened milk and egg custard flavored with almond and vanilla, used as a filling for cream cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Cream for Cream Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Wet the cornstarch in cold milk.

  2. Cook the cornstarch mixture in boiling milk for 10 minutes, stirring thoroughly.

  3. Beat the eggs, then add sugar and salt.

  4. Stir the egg mixture into the thickened milk and cook for a few more minutes.

Finish

  1. When cool, flavor with almond extract and vanilla.

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. Almond + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  4. Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

Cornstarch
Thickens the milk into a smooth, sliceable cream as it cooks.
Eggs
Add richness and help set the cream as the mixture is cooked.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the set texture of the cream.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the cornstarch and eggs thicken.

The step that matters

Stirring the cornstarch mixture in boiling milk. Cornstarch can clump or scorch if not stirred thoroughly while it heats. Constant stirring keeps it dispersed so it thickens evenly into a smooth cream.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Cocoafits about as well
  4. Hazelnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, egg, vanilla. 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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