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Dessert

Nut or Fruit Cake Slice

A sweet cake slice made from sugar, glucose, water, ground nuts or fruits, and coated with bon bon cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Nut or Fruit Cake Slice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine sugar, glucose, and water in a large pot.

  2. Cook over medium heat until the mixture reaches 244°F (118°C).

  3. Pour the mixture onto a damp slab.

Shape and set

  1. Sprinkle ground nut meats or small pieces of assorted French fruits over the mixture.

  2. Cream the mixture until smooth.

  3. Form it into round loaves about 10 inches long and 4 inches in diameter.

  4. Let the loaves set until cold.

Coat and serve

  1. Melt the bon bon cream and color it pink or chocolate.

  2. Coat each roll with the melted cream as smoothly as possible.

  3. Cut into slices.

  4. Serve.

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

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

  2. Meat + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,248 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Sugar + meattop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,866 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Forms the bulk of the candy and sets firm as it cools.
Glucose
Prevents crystallization so the mixture stays smooth and tender.
Ground nut meats or french fruits
Add texture and flavor through the body of the cake.
Bon bon cream
Forms a smooth outer coating over the loaves.

The step that matters

Cream the mixture until smooth. Working the cooked sugar while it cools encourages fine crystals, giving a smooth texture instead of a grainy one. Cooking to the stated temperature also controls how firm the set becomes.

“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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