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Dessert

Neapolitan Cake

A layered cake made with brown sugar, molasses, coffee, raisins, currants, spices, and a frosting of sugar, butter, milk, flour, corn starch, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 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 ↓

Neapolitan Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

Make the batters

  1. In a bowl, mix brown sugar, eggs, butter, molasses, coffee, flour, raisins, currants, baking soda, cloves, cinnamon, and mace until well combined.

  2. In another bowl, cream white sugar and butter, then add milk, flour, corn starch, egg whites, and cream of tartar.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the brown mixture and white mixture in cake pans.

  2. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

Ice and finish

  1. For icing, beat the egg whites until stiff, then spread between the 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. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  3. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavor in both batters.
Flour
Provides the main structure of the cake as it sets in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and coffee to lift the dark batter.
Egg whites
Whipped to add lightness and structure to the white batter and icing.
Cream of tartar
Stabilizes the whipped egg whites so they hold their volume.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites for icing. Egg whites must be beaten until stiff, with air trapped in a foam that holds its shape. Under-beaten whites stay runny and will not hold between the layers, while over-beaten whites turn dry and grainy.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, butter, molasses, coffee, flour, raisin. 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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