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Dessert

Caramel Cake

A layered cake with caramelized sugar base and sweet filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 ↓

Caramel Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the caramel

  1. Melt ½ cup sugar over medium heat until it becomes a liquid and dark brown.

  2. Add ½ cup boiling water to the melted sugar.

  3. Set the mixture aside.

Make the cake

  1. Cream together 1½ cups sugar and ½ cup softened butter in a mixing bowl.

  2. Add 1 cup warm water, 2 cups flour, 2 egg yolks, 2 teaspoons baking powder, and 3 tablespoons burnt sugar.

  3. Mix the batter well.

  4. Fold in the beaten egg whites and ½ cup flour.

  5. Divide the batter into two layers.

  6. Bake the layers at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

Make the filling and assemble

  1. Combine 2 cups sugar, an egg-sized piece of butter, and ½ cup milk in a saucepan for the filling.

  2. Boil the mixture.

  3. Add 3 tablespoons burnt sugar until it reaches fudge consistency.

  4. Beat the filling until nearly cool.

  5. Stir in 1 teaspoon vanilla extract.

  6. Spread the filling 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. Butter + milktop 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Egg whites beaten to stiff peaks trap air, lifting the batter and giving a light crumb.
All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the cake its structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the layers rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, when melted and cooked, browns to give caramel flavour.

The step that matters

Beat the filling until nearly cool. Beating while the boiled sugar mixture cools lets it crystallise into a thick, spreadable fudge. Beating too early or too late can leave it grainy or too stiff to spread.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

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