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Dessert

White Fruit Cake

A cake made with egg whites, sugar, flour, butter, baking powder, citron, almonds, coconut, walnuts, mace, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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White Fruit Cake

Why it works: Almond and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 993 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

White Fruit Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Gradually add the sugar, continuing to beat until well combined.

  3. In another bowl, cream the butter and mix in the flour and baking powder.

  4. Fold the butter mixture into the egg mixture.

  5. Add the citron, almonds, coconut, walnuts, mace, and cinnamon, mixing gently.

  6. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

Bake

  1. Bake slowly for 5 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. Almond + walnuttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together993 recipes

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

  2. Almond + coconuttop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

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

  3. Coconut + walnuttop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together606 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Egg whites
Whipped to form the light, airy structure of the batter.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the cake a tender crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten structure that holds the cake together.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and lightens.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps stabilize the whipped egg whites.
Citron
Adds chewy, candied fruit pieces and fruity flavor throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Folding the butter mixture into the egg mixture. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the egg whites. Stirring vigorously would deflate the batter, leading to a denser cake with less rise.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour, butter, almond, coconut, walnut. 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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