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Dessert

Iceland Fruit Cake

A baked cake made with egg whites, powdered sugar, butter, sweet cream, flour, baking powder, almonds, raisins, coconut, and lemon extract.

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 ↓

Iceland Fruit 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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  3. Gradually add the powdered sugar, continuing to beat until well combined.

  4. In another bowl, cream the butter and sweet cream together.

  5. Mix in the flour and baking powder until smooth.

  6. Fold in the chopped almonds, raisins, grated coconut, and lemon extract.

  7. Gently combine the egg white mixture with the batter until just incorporated.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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. Almond + raisintop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

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

  3. Almond + coconuttop 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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that lightens the cake's crumb.
Butter
Creamed with the sweet cream, it adds richness and a tender texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cake rise.
Chopped almonds
Add chewy texture, nutty flavor, and body to the batter.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps stabilize the whipped egg whites.

The step that matters

Gently combine the egg white mixture with the batter. Whipped egg whites hold the air that lifts the cake. Folding gently and only until just incorporated keeps that air from deflating, so the cake rises well.

Swap the coconut

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

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

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