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Dessert

Watermelon Cake

A layered cake with white and red batter, made with butter, sugar, milk, flour, eggs, raisins, and food coloring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Watermelon 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 the batters

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream together 2 cups sugar and 1 cup butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add 1 cup milk, 3½ cups flour, the whites of 8 eggs, and 2 teaspoons baking powder. Mix until smooth.

  4. In another bowl, combine 1 cup sugar, 4 cups butter, 4 cups milk, 2 cups flour, the whites of 4 eggs, 1 teaspoon baking powder, and 1 cup raisins.

  5. Add red food coloring to the second mixture until desired color is achieved.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the red batter into a tube pan, then pour the white batter around it.

  2. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted 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.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites provide structure and lift, setting the crumb as the cake bakes.
All-purpose flour
Gluten and starch form the cake's structure and set its crumb.
Butter
Fat tenderises the crumb and carries flavour through the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, making the cake rise and become light.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps keep the crumb tender and moist.

The step that matters

Pouring the red batter and white batter into the tube pan. Pour the red batter first into the centre, then the white around it, so the two layers stay separate and the slice shows the watermelon pattern. Pouring carelessly can blend the colours.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

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