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Dessert

Minnehaha Cake

A layered cake made with flour, egg whites, butter, sugar, and raisins, baked in layers with a sugar‑egg white filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Minnehaha Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the cake

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

  2. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth.

  3. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  4. Mix the creamed butter and sugar with the flour and beaten egg whites.

  5. Bake in layers as you would for a jelly cake.

Make the filling and top

  1. For the filling, melt 1 lb of sugar until boiling hot, then mix with 4 beaten egg whites and the finely chopped raisins.

  2. Spread the filling between the layers.

  3. For the top, add layers of chopped raisins, melted sugar, and egg froth.

  4. Set in a cool oven to harden, but do not bake.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's layers together.
Egg whites
Beaten into a stiff froth, they lighten the batter and help it rise and set.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, when melted, forms the glossy, firm filling and top.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness to the filling and top.

The step that matters

Set in a cool oven to harden, but do not bake. The top relies on melted sugar and egg white setting into a firm layer without browning. Excess heat can scorch the sugar or cook the eggs too quickly, so a cool oven lets it firm gently.

“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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