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Dessert

White Fruit Cake

A light, almond-flavored cake with citron, raisins, and kirschwasser, baked slowly and iced with maraschino or kirschwasser.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

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

  2. Gradually add the egg whites, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the almond and lemon extracts, and the kirschwasser.

  4. Gently fold in the sifted flour and baking powder.

  5. Add the almonds, citron, and raisins.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into paper-lined pans or molds.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for about 1½ hours.

  3. Once baked, ice the cake with icing flavored with maraschino or kirschwasser.

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. Almond + raisintop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

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

  3. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps trap air for a light crumb.
White butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavor, and helps hold air when creamed.
Egg whites
Provide structure and lift as the batter sets in the oven.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to help the cake rise.
Sultana raisins
Add moisture and chewy sweetness through the crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the flour and baking powder. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten and makes the cake tough, while the air built up in the batter is lost. Fold gently, just until no dry flour shows.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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