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Dessert

Caramel Cake

A baked cake with a caramel filling made from brown sugar, cream, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. 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 batter

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  3. Add the flour and cold water. Mix until smooth.

  4. Beat the egg whites separately. Beat the egg yolks separately.

  5. Fold the beaten whites and yolks into the batter.

  6. Stir in the vanilla extract. Stir in the baking powder.

  7. Pour the batter into jelly cake tins.

  8. Bake until golden.

Make the caramel filling

  1. Combine brown sugar, cream, and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Cook until thick.

  3. Pour into a dish and whip until cool.

  4. Stir in the vanilla extract.

Assemble

  1. Spread the filling on the cake.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  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. 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

Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the cake and smoothness to the filling.
Eggs
Provide structure and lift to the batter when whites and yolks are beaten and folded in.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as the batter sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Brown sugar
Gives the filling its caramel flavour and moist, thick body.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture so the filling cooks to a smooth, thick texture.

The step that matters

Cook until thick. The filling thickens as its sugar and cream cook down and then cool. Undercooked filling stays runny and soaks into the cake, while overcooking can make it grainy or hard when cool.

Swap the vanilla

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

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

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