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Dessert

Minnehaha Cake

A cake made with egg whites, sugar, butter, milk, flour, baking powder, lemon flavoring, blanched almonds, raisins, and boiled frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Minnehaha 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.

Make the batter

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

  2. Beat the egg whites in a large bowl until stiff peaks form.

  3. Cream together the sugar and butter in another bowl until light and fluffy.

  4. Add the milk and mix well.

  5. Gradually add the flour and baking powder, mixing until smooth.

  6. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  7. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 25‑30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make the filling and finish

  1. Chop the blanched almonds and seeded raisins finely for the filling.

  2. Mix the chopped almonds and raisins with boiled frosting and add lemon flavoring.

  3. Spread the filling on the cooled cake and top with halved blanched 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. Almond + raisintop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 give the cake its light, airy structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and tender texture.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, creamed texture with butter.
Seeded raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness to the filling.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air bubbles that make the cake light. Folding gently keeps those bubbles intact; vigorous stirring deflates them and yields a denser cake.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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