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Dessert

Watermelon Cake

A cake molded into a watermelon shape with white and red batter, steamed for three hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Watermelon Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batters

  1. Cream the butter and sugar thoroughly.

  2. Whip the egg whites to a light froth, add cream of tartar, and whip until stiff.

  3. Sift the flour once, measure, add baking soda and flavoring, and sift three times.

  4. Combine the creamed butter and sugar with milk, egg whites, and flour, stirring until smooth.

  5. Take one-third of the batter and color it red with cranberry juice or fruit coloring.

  6. Dampen the raisins, dredge them with flour, and stir them into the red batter, adding more flour if needed to stiffen it.

Fill the mold

  1. Grease a 1‑quart watermelon mold well with suet.

  2. Spread the white batter evenly on the bottom and sides of the mold.

  3. Place the red batter in the center, being careful not to mix it with the white batter.

  4. Grease the inside of the cover before placing it on the mold.

Steam and finish

  1. Steam the cake for three hours in a covered vessel, either in a steam cooker or in a pan of hot water in the oven.

  2. Remove from the mold while warm and frost with 'Glace' frosting, adding a few drops of pistachio nut coloring if desired.

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Whipped whites trap air, giving the cake its light, airy structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the batter as the cake steams.
Granulated sugar
Creamed with butter, it sweetens and helps give a fine, tender texture.
Cream of tartar
Stabilizes the whipped egg whites so they hold their volume.
Baking soda
Reacts with acid in the batter to help it rise and lighten.

The step that matters

Placing the red batter in the center. Pouring the red batter carefully keeps the colored layer distinct from the white batter. Too much mixing blurs the watermelon look, and the batter's structure depends on the whites staying whipped and unbroken.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Raspberryfits less well
  4. Strawberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, milk, flour, cream, sugar, rose. 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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