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Dessert

Caramel Cake

A sweet baked cake with a caramel filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Caramel 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 your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix 1 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon cream of tartar, ½ cup butter, ½ teaspoon baking soda, and 1 cup sweet milk until smooth.

  3. Gradually add 2 cups all‑purpose flour and mix well.

  4. Fold in 4 beaten egg whites gently.

  5. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 30‑35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make the caramel filling

  1. For the caramel filling, combine 2 cups white sugar, butter the size of a small egg, and 1 cup sweet milk in a saucepan.

  2. Boil the mixture for 7 minutes, stirring constantly.

  3. Once done, let it cool slightly before spreading it 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Egg whites
Beaten whites trap air and help the cake rise and set with a light texture.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in both the cake and the caramel filling.
White sugar
Sweetens the filling and, when boiled, cooks down into the caramel flavor and thick texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acts as an acid that works with baking soda to lighten the batter and stabilize the whites.

The step that matters

Boiling the caramel filling. Boiling the sugar and milk for the full 7 minutes while stirring constantly thickens the mixture and prevents it from scorching on the bottom of the pan. Stopping early leaves a runny filling, and overcooking makes it hard and grainy.

“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.

More caramel cake recipes

Chocolate 16Filling 11Potato 9Maple 4 See all 114 →

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