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Dessert

Baker's Cream Cakes

A sweet cake made from a butter and flour batter, baked and filled with a custard made from milk, egg, sugar, flour, and corn starch.

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 ↓

Baker's Cream Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the choux batter

  1. Boil the water and butter together.

  2. Pour the mixture into the flour.

  3. Let the batter cool slightly.

  4. Add the beaten eggs.

  5. Mix the batter well.

Bake the cakes

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto buttered baking tins.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden.

  3. Open the cakes at the sides.

Make the custard and fill

  1. Boil the milk for the custard.

  2. Add the beaten egg, sugar, flour, and corn starch to the milk.

  3. Cook the custard until thickened, stirring constantly.

  4. Let the custard cool before filling the cakes.

  5. Fill the cakes with custard.

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. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

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

Butter
Melts into the boiling water to create fat that enriches the batter and adds tenderness.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch that, with the eggs, gives the batter its structure once baked.
Eggs
Bind the batter and, as they set in the heat, help the cakes rise and hold their shape.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, giving it body and a smooth, creamy texture.
Corn starch
Thickens the custard as it cooks, giving it a smooth, stable set.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and adds flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Cook the custard until thickened, stirring constantly. Starch thickens only when heated enough, but it can scorch or form lumps if left unstirred. Constant stirring keeps the custard smooth and evenly thick.

“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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