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Lady Baltimore Cake

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Lady Baltimore Cake

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cream the butter and gradually add half the sugar, beating well.

  2. Beat the remaining sugar into the egg yolks.

  3. Sift the cream of tartar and baking soda twice through the flour.

  4. Gradually add the flour mixture, alternating with the milk.

  5. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  6. Divide the batter; flavor half with rose and the other half with vanilla, lemon, or almond.

  7. Bake in four layers: two white and two spiced.

  8. Prepare the boiled icing and mix in the filling ingredients: raisins, citron, and almonds.

  9. Blanch the almonds by soaking in cold water, then remove skins and dry in the oven.

  10. Once the cakes are cool, spread the filling thickly between layers and top with powdered sugar and almonds.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Coconut + almondtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  4. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Coconutthe original
  4. Peachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, butter, milk, cream, raisin, almond. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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