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Dessert

White Fruit Cake

A moist cake made with butter, sugar, milk, flour, egg whites, baking powder, figs, raisins, almonds, citron, lemon extract, and optional dates.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the milk and mix well.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.

  4. Fold the flour mixture into the butter mixture.

  5. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Add the fruit and bake

  1. Flour the figs, raisins, almonds, citron, and dates.

  2. Add the floured fruits and nuts to the batter.

  3. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  4. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for two hours.

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. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

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

  3. Fig + almondtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together519 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Egg whites
Beaten stiff and folded in, they add lift and an airy structure to the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise in the oven.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure once set by heat.
Figs
Add moisture and chewy texture, plus natural sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stiff whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring vigorously deflates the batter and yields a dense cake.

Swap the fig

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figthe original
  3. Coconutfits less well
  4. Peachfits less well

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