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Dessert

White Fruit Cake

A light, airy cake made with egg whites, butter, milk, sugar, flour, brandy, raisins, and citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

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 batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the brandy and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, alternating with the milk.

  6. Fold in the egg whites gently until just combined.

  7. Stir in the stoned raisins and thinly sliced citron.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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

Egg whites
Whipped or folded in, they add lightness and airy structure to the crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and a tender texture.
Sugar
Creamed with butter, it helps create a light texture and adds sweetness and browning.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter, stabilizing the egg whites and helping the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic ingredients to produce gas that leavens the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Egg whites hold air only if they are not deflated. Overmixing knocks out the air bubbles, so the cake turns dense instead of light.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Apricotfits less well

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