Skip to main content
Dessert

White Fruit Cake

A light cake made with butter, sugar, flour, egg whites, white wine, citron, almonds, and coconut.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
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.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter until creamy, then gradually add the sugar and white wine.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the butter and sugar mixture.

  3. Sift the flour with the baking powder and fold it into the mixture.

  4. Add the citron, almonds, and coconut, mixing well.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into two loaf pans and bake for 40 minutes.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  5. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 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 create a tender, fine-textured crumb and rich flavour.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the batter and give the cake its structure.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender, moist crumb.
Almonds
Add nutty flavour and a firm, crunchy texture to the crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the stiff egg whites. Whites beaten to stiff peaks hold the air that lightens the batter. Overmixing when folding in flour or whites knocks out this air, leading to a dense cake.

Swap the coconut

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

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

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

You might also like

Almond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipesAlmond WafersAlmond Wafers22 recipesCoconut Almond CakeCoconut Almond Cake17 recipes