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Dessert

Harlequin Cake

A colorful layered cake with lemon filling and hot icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,927 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Harlequin Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare and bake the layers

  1. Prepare the layer cake mixture and divide it into three portions, coloring each with different food coloring.

  2. Bake each layer in separate tins at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

Fill and stack

  1. Once cool, spread the lemon mixture between two layers and stack them.

Make the lemon mixture

  1. To make the lemon mixture, mix the corn starch and water in a saucepan and cook for 5 minutes.

  2. Add the sugar, lemon juice, and egg to the mixture, then cook for 1 more minute.

Ice

  1. Ice the stacked cake with hot icing.

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. Lemon + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + corntop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Corn starch
Thickens the lemon filling as it cooks with the water.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemon
Provides acidity and bright citrus aroma to the filling.
Egg
Adds richness and helps give the filling body as it cooks.
Layer cake mixture
Forms the sponge layers that give the cake its structure and crumb.

The step that matters

Cooking the cornstarch and water. Cornstarch only thickens fully once it is heated enough to swell and set. If it is undercooked, the filling stays thin and can taste raw and floury.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, corn. 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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