Skip to main content
Dessert

Neapolitan Cake

A layered cake made with powdered sugar, butter, sweet milk, flour, egg whites, baking soda, cream of tartar, raisins, citron, currants, spices, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

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 batter

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

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

  3. Add the sweet milk and mix well.

  4. Gradually add the sifted flour, mixing until combined.

  5. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold the egg whites into the batter gently.

  6. Stir in the baking soda and cream of tartar.

Bake the layers

  1. Divide the batter into two layers and bake until golden.

  2. For the third layer, stir in the chopped raisins, sultana raisins, citron, currants, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, and nutmeg.

  3. Bake the third layer until done.

Assemble and ice

  1. Once cooled, layer the cakes and spread icing flavored with a little almond between each 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, 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 and give the cake its light, airy crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and a tender texture.
All-purpose flour
Forms the cake's structure once its proteins set during baking.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and, creamed with butter, helps create a light, fine texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to release gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter, stabilizing the whites and reacting with baking soda to help the cake rise.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped whites hold the cake's rise, so they must be folded in gently. Overmixing deflates the foam and produces a dense, heavy layer.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesClove CakeClove Cake53 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipes