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Dessert

Genoa Cake

A fruit cake with currants, raisins, candied citrus, almonds, and spices baked in clarified butter and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Genoa Cake

Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Genoa 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).

  2. Mix currants, raisins, candied fruits, cinnamon, sugar, flour, and lemon rind in a bowl.

  3. Beat in clarified butter, eggs, and brandy for several minutes.

  4. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered shallow tin.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake for about 45 minutes.

  2. Combine egg white, powdered sugar, and sherry in a small bowl. Brush the top of the cake with the egg mixture and sprinkle with almonds.

  3. Return to the oven for a few more minutes to brown the almonds.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the fruit and butter together as the cake sets.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set firm during baking.
Clarified butter
Adds richness and tenderness, carrying flavour through the crumb.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the crust brown.
Currants
Add chewy texture and concentrated fruit sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Brushing the egg white glaze before the final bake. The thin egg white and sugar coating must be spread evenly over the top before it returns to the oven. Uneven coverage leads to patchy browning on the almonds, and the short final bake is needed to toast them without scorching the sugar.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, lemon, orange, cinnamon, sugar, flour, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Cranberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, lemon, orange, cinnamon, sugar, flour, butter. 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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