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Dessert

White Fruit Cake

A cake made with butter, sugar, flour, egg whites, milk, baking powder, citron, almonds, coconut, and almond extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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White Fruit Cake

Why it works: Almond and coconut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,093 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. 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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

  3. Add the milk and soaked coconut, mixing well.

  4. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.

  5. Sift the flour with the baking powder and gradually add it to the batter.

  6. Fold in the chopped fruit and almond extract.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into two loaf pans and bake for about 40 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. Almond + coconuttop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

  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

Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the crumb as it is creamed with sugar.
Egg whites
Beaten to stiff peaks, they trap air and give the cake its light structure.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the batter rises.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps hold moisture while creaming with butter.
Almonds
Add texture and a nutty flavour throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stiff egg whites hold the air that lifts the batter. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring vigorously deflates it and leaves a denser cake.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Coconutthe original

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