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Dessert

Cream Layer Cake

A cake with a plain batter, chocolate middle layer, walnut cream filling, and coconut-topped egg white frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Cream Layer 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.

Make the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the milk, flour, whole egg, and egg yolk, mixing until smooth.

  4. Divide one-third of the batter and mix in grated chocolate and vanilla extract.

Bake and fill

  1. Pour the plain batter into jelly cake tins, then add the chocolate batter as the middle layer.

  2. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about 25-30 minutes.

  3. For the filling, whip the thick cream and mix in the rolled walnut meats and sugar.

  4. Spread the filling between the layers of cake.

Frost and top

  1. Beat the egg white until stiff peaks form and spread it on top of the cake.

  2. Top with shredded coconut.

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. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and adds tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, and helps bind the batter.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown while creating a tender texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and hydrates the flour so the batter forms a smooth mixture.
Thick cream
Whipped, it gives the filling a light, rich, moist texture.

The step that matters

Beat the egg white until stiff peaks form. Egg white must be whipped to stiff peaks for the frosting to hold volume. Any trace of fat or yolk in the bowl will prevent the whites from whipping properly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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