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Dessert

Hash Cake

A layered cake made with silver bean cake, almonds, pecans, raisins, citron, figs, orange and lemon juice, egg whites, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Hash Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop the fruit finely and mix with the almond and pecan mixture.

  2. Stir in two-thirds of the icing made from egg whites and sugar.

  3. Spread the mixture in thick layers between the cake layers.

Finish the cake

  1. Use the remaining icing to cover the outside of the cake.

  2. Decorate the top with reserved almonds.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

  3. Almond + figtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together519 recipes

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

  4. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Fig + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together407 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Silver cake
Provides the layered structure that holds the filling and icing.
Blanched almonds
Add body and a firm, chewy texture to the filling.
Egg whites
Whipped into the icing, they give it volume and let it set as it cools.
Sugar
Sweetens the icing and helps it set firm on the cake's surface.
Seeded raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy moisture to the filling.
Powdered pecans
Add richness and a tender, oily texture to the filling.

Swap the pecans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, raisin, fig, orange, lemon, egg, sugar):

  1. Pistachiofits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Brazil nutfits better
  4. Pecansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, raisin, fig, orange, lemon, egg, sugar. 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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