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Dessert

White Fruit Cake

A moist cake made with butter, sugar, milk, flour, baking powder, citron, almonds, coconut, white wine, and folded egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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White Fruit Cake

Why it works: Almond and coconut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,093 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓

White Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the milk and mix well.

  3. Sift the flour and baking powder together three times, then add to the mixture and stir until combined.

  4. Add the sliced citron, chopped almonds, grated coconut, and white wine, stirring gently to mix.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites carefully.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into two loaf pans.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden and a toothpick 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.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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 cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Egg whites
Folded in last to add lift and a light, airy structure to the batter.
Almonds
Add nutty flavor and a firm, chewy bite to the crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the cake rise in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps create a tender texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only while they are intact. Overmixing or deflating them makes the cake dense, so fold gently until just combined.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Coconutthe original

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