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Dessert

Fayette War Cake

A spiced cake with raisins, nuts, and apple sauce baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 ↓

Fayette War Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the Crisco and brown sugar together.

  2. Add the egg yolks and apple sauce, mixing well.

  3. Sift together the corn flour, rye flour, baking powder, and baking soda, then add to the mixture.

  4. Fold in the raisins and nuts that have been dredged in the remaining flour.

  5. Add the spices and vinegar, then fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

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. Corn + ryetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together182 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Flour + ryetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Raisin + nutstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Rye + nutstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl decanoate (grape, waxy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter and beaten whites lighten its structure as they are folded in.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic vinegar and apple sauce to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking to give the cake lift and a lighter crumb.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown and stay tender.
Crisco
Provides fat that tenderises the crumb and carries the spices' flavour.
Corn flour
Supplies starch that sets during baking to form the cake's structure.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when whipped and gently folded in; overmixing or deflating them makes the cake denser and less able to rise.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, flour, rye, sugar, sauce, raisin, nuts):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, flour, rye, sugar, sauce, raisin, nuts. 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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