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Dessert

Ice Cream Cake

A cake topped with a sweet milk and powdered sugar glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

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.

Make the cake

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

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

  3. Add the eggs and mix well, then stir in the sweet milk.

  4. Gradually add the flour and baking powder, mixing until smooth.

  5. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make the topping

  1. In a saucepan, combine 1 cup sweet milk, powdered sugar, and cornstarch.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat and flavor with vanilla.

Assemble

  1. Once the cake is cool, pour the thickened mixture over it.

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. Milk + buttertop 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. Flour + buttertop 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
Add structure and richness as they bind the batter and set during baking.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets the cake crumb as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Butter
Adds fat and tenderness to the cake crumb and carries flavor.
Cornstarch
Thickens the sweet milk mixture into a smooth, pudding-like topping when heated.

The step that matters

Cooking the topping until thickened. Cornstarch thickens only when the mixture is heated enough and stirred constantly; undercooked starch stays runny, and scorching can occur on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the vanilla

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

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

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