Skip to main content
Dessert

Fruit Layer Cake

A layered cake with a fruit batter, sweet filling, marshmallows, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fruit Layer 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. In a bowl, mix powdered sugar, milk or water, flour, baking powder, and butter until smooth.

  3. Beat the whites of 6 eggs until stiff and fold into the batter.

Make the fruit layer

  1. In another bowl, combine light-brown sugar, spices, and yolks of 5 eggs.

  2. Add the mixed fruits and 1 cup of milk to the fruit layer mixture.

  3. Fold in 2 teaspoons of baking powder.

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

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, boil 2 cups of granulated sugar with 4 tablespoons of water until it threads.

  2. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth and stir in the hot sugar while beating continuously.

  3. Add diced marshmallows and mix well.

  4. Before spreading on the cake, fold in the whipped cream.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites trap air for lift and structure, while yolks add richness and tenderness.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavor.
Light-brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a caramel-like depth to the fruit layer.
Granulated sugar
Boiled with water to make a syrup that gives the filling its body and sweetness.

The step that matters

Beating the hot sugar into the egg whites. Hot syrup must be added slowly while beating continuously; pouring it in too fast or letting the whites deflate leaves the meringue-style filling loose and unstable.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

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

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesClove CakeClove Cake53 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipes