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Dessert

Ambrosia Cake

A coconut cake with a whipped cream and coconut filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Ambrosia 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.

Make the batter

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

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

  3. Add the milk and mix well.

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

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, mixing until smooth.

  6. Fold in the beaten eggs gently.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake until golden brown.

Fill and assemble

  1. For the filling, mix the whipped cream, grated coconut, sugar, orange juice, and beaten egg together.

  2. Once the cake layers are cool, spread the filling between the layers and on top.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

  5. Coconut + orangetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together584 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the cake's main structure once it sets in the oven.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the crumb hold together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that lifts the cake.
Cream of tartar
Acts as an acid that works with the baking soda to help the cake rise.
Whipped cream
Gives the filling a light texture and moisture.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten eggs gently. Overmixing after the flour is added develops gluten and knocks out the air trapped in the eggs, which can make the cake dense. Gentle folding keeps the batter light so it rises evenly.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

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