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Dessert

Watermelon Cake

A layered cake with white and red batters, raisins, and butter, baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Watermelon 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

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

Make the white batter

  1. In a bowl, cream together ½ cup butter and 1 cup powdered sugar until light and fluffy.

  2. Add 3 egg whites and ⅓ cup sweet milk, mixing well.

  3. Stir in ½ tablespoon baking powder and 1½ cups flour until combined.

Make the red batter

  1. In another bowl, cream ½ cup butter with 1 cup red sugar.

  2. Add 5 egg yolks and ⅓ cup sweet milk, mixing thoroughly.

  3. Stir in 1 tablespoon baking powder, 2 cups flour, and ½ pound seeded raisins.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the red batter into the center of a greased pan and surround it with the white batter.

  2. Bake until a toothpick inserted 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.

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the batter a light, tender crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as the batter sets in the oven.
Egg whites
Add structure and lift to the white batter as they set.
Egg yolks
Add richness, fat and color to the red batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise.
Seeded raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture to the red batter.

The step that matters

Pour the red batter into the center of the pan. Placing the red batter in the center and surrounding it with white batter keeps the two colors separate for the watermelon look. Pour gently so the layers do not mix before baking.

Swap the raisin

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

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

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