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Dessert

Cream for Cream Cakes

A custard-like cream made from milk, cornstarch, eggs, sugar, salt, almond and vanilla extracts.

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. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Wet the cornstarch in a small amount of cold milk, then add it to the boiling milk.

  3. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring thoroughly.

  4. In a bowl, beat the eggs, then add the sugar and salt.

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

Flavor and cool

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

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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the cream and sets into a smooth custard when heated.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the cream body.
Eggs
Add richness and help set the cream as they cook with the milk.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and adds softness to its texture.

The step that matters

Stir the egg mixture into the thickened milk. Eggs can scramble if they hit hot liquid too fast or cook too hard. Stirring steadily while adding the egg mixture and cooking gently keeps the cream smooth.

Swap the almond

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