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Dessert

Almond Cake and Lady Baltimore

A sweet almond cake layered with a Lady Baltimore filling of whipped egg whites, raisins, pecans, and figs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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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 ↓

Almond Cake and Lady Baltimore

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the cake

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

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

  3. Add the milk and mix well.

  4. Sift together the flour and baking powder, then gradually add to the mixture.

  5. Fold in the vanilla extract and the beaten egg whites.

  6. Divide the batter into two greased cake pans and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, boil 3 cups of granulated sugar with ⅓ cup of water until it threads.

  2. Pour the hot syrup over the whipped egg whites and beat until thick and creamy.

  3. Stir in the raisins, pecans, and minced figs.

Assemble

  1. Layer the filling between the baked cake layers.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Vanilla + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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 structure once its proteins set in the oven.
Egg whites
Trap air and set during baking, giving the cake lift and a light crumb.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, making the cake rise.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep the crumb moist and tender.
Almonds
Add nutty flavor and a fine texture to the cake.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot syrup into the whites. The syrup must be boiled to the threading stage and poured while hot. Its heat cooks the whipped whites into a stable, glossy filling. Syrup that is too cool or added too early leaves the filling runny or weepy.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Peachfits about as well

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