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Dessert

Ice Cream Cake

A baked cake made with powdered sugar, flour, butter, salt, milk, corn starch, egg whites, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Ice Cream 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream the butter and powdered sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Dissolve the corn starch in the sweet milk and add it to the mixture.

  4. Gradually add the sifted flour and mix well.

  5. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the batter.

  6. Add the baking powder and stir lightly until combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a large pan or divide it into layers for a layer cake.

  2. Bake until golden brown, about 25-30 minutes.

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. Flour + buttertop 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).

Flour and butter 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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air and give the cake its light, airy structure.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Butter
Creamed with the sugar to trap air, adding tenderness and richness.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a fine, tender crumb when creamed with butter.
Corn starch
Softens the crumb and makes the cake more tender than flour alone.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and become lighter.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped egg whites hold the air that lifts the cake. Stirring them in vigorously deflates the foam, while gentle folding keeps the batter light and well risen.

“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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