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Dessert

Neapolitan Cake

Layered cake with loaf of molasses, coffee, spices, raisins, currants, citron, and white loaf of butter, sugar, milk, corn starch, lemon frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 25 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Neapolitan 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 dark layer

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream together 1 cup butter and 2 cups brown sugar until smooth.

  3. Mix in 1 cup molasses and 1 cup strong coffee.

  4. Gradually add 4 ½ cups sifted flour, 4 eggs, 2 teaspoons baking soda, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, 2 teaspoons cloves, and 1 teaspoon mace.

  5. Fold in 1 pound raisins, 1 pound currants, and ¼ pound citron.

  6. Pour the batter into round jelly pans and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make the white layer

  1. For the white layer, cream 1 cup butter with 4 cups white sugar.

  2. Add 2 cups sweet milk, 2 cups corn starch, 4 ½ cups sifted flour, 8 egg whites, 2 tablespoons baking powder, and ½ teaspoon extract of bitter almonds.

  3. Pour into pans and bake until set.

Frost and stack

  1. Once cooled, frost each black loaf with a mixture of 1 beaten egg white, grated rind of 2 lemons, juice of 3 lemons, and enough powdered sugar to make a thick frosting.

  2. Stack a white loaf on each black loaf and frost the top.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Coffee + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together895 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  5. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Creams with sugar to form a tender, fine-textured crumb structure.
Brown sugar
Adds moisture and a deep, caramel-like sweetness to the dark layer.
Molasses
Contributes dark color, moisture and a rich, slightly bitter flavor.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake crumb as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and coffee to lift and lighten the dark batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking to give the white layer its rise.

The step that matters

Pour the batter into round jelly pans and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.. Overbaking dries the cake and dulls its moisture, while underbaking leaves a dense, gummy center. A clean toothpick shows the starches and proteins have set.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, molasses, coffee, flour, egg, cinnamon. 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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