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Dessert

Lady Baltimore Cake

A layered sponge cake with raisins and walnuts, topped with a sweet icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Lady Baltimore 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.

Make the cake

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

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

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, beating vigorously after each addition.

  4. Mix in half of the flour, then add the water, and finally the remaining flour.

  5. Stir in the baking powder until well combined.

  6. Divide the batter into three large round cake pans and bake until golden.

Make the filling and icing

  1. For the filling, mix the chopped raisins and broken walnuts with boiled icing.

  2. Spread the filling between the baked cakes, reserving some for the top.

  3. For the icing, boil 2 cups of sugar and 1 cup of water until it spins like glass.

  4. Pour the hot syrup into the beaten egg whites and beat until thickened.

  5. Fold in the nuts and raisins, then flavor with vanilla and rose extracts.

  6. Spread the icing on top of the cake.

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. Walnut + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together993 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Almond + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, binding the batter as they set in the oven.
Flour
Forms the cake's main structure once heated and set.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cakes rise and become light.
Egg whites
Beaten with hot syrup to form a stable, thickened boiled icing.
Walnuts
Add crunch and a contrast of texture to the raisin filling.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot syrup into the egg whites. The syrup must be boiled to the right stage and poured slowly while beating. Hot sugar cooks the egg whites as they are whisked, forming a glossy, stable icing; if the syrup is too cool or added all at once, the icing can stay runny or turn grainy.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Brazil nutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, flour, butter, raisin, almond, vanilla. 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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