Skip to main content
Dessert

White Fruit Cake

A baked cake made with butter, sugar, flour, egg whites, baking powder, raisins, figs, dates, almonds, and citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
White Fruit Cake

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 ↓

White 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

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

Make the batter

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

  2. Add the egg whites and mix well.

  3. Sift the flour and baking powder together, then gradually add to the mixture.

  4. Fold in the raisins, figs, dates, almonds, and citron.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for about 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Fig + datestop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

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

  4. Fig + almondtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together519 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 and give a tender, rich crumb.
Egg whites
Add structure and help the cake set as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the main structure that holds the cake together.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.
Almonds
Add crunch and nutty flavor that contrasts with the soft crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the dried fruit and nuts. Overmixing after the flour goes in develops gluten and makes the cake tough. Fold gently and only until the fruit is evenly distributed, so the batter keeps the air and rise from the baking powder.

Swap the dates

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits about as well
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Datesthe original

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

More fruit cake recipes

White 89Black 40Christmas 29Eggless 27Molasses 23Apple 17 See all 952 →

You might also like

Stuffed DatesStuffed Dates32 recipesAlmond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipesAlmond WafersAlmond Wafers22 recipes