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Dessert

Ambrosia Cake

A coconut and orange cake topped with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Ambrosia 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 cake

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the milk and eggs, mixing well.

  4. Combine the flour and baking powder in a separate bowl.

  5. Gradually add the dry mixture to the wet mixture.

  6. Pour the batter into jelly cake pans.

  7. Bake the batter until golden.

  8. Let the cake cool.

Assemble the topping

  1. Spread the whipped cream over the cooled cake.

  2. Mix the grated coconut, eggs, sugar, orange juice, and grated rind together.

  3. Spread this mixture over the whipped cream layer.

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

  5. Coconut + orangetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together584 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter set as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake once baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes airy.
Heavy cream
Whipped into a light layer that adds moisture and a soft, creamy texture.
Grated coconut
Adds moisture, chewy texture and a sweet, tropical flavor to the topping.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry mixture to the wet mixture. Adding flour in portions and mixing gently keeps the batter smooth and limits gluten development, so the cake stays tender rather than tough.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

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