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Dessert

Neapolitan Cake

A layered cake with a dark spiced base and a sweet white frosting, containing raisins, currants, citron, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 25 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Neapolitan 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 the dark batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream together 1 cup butter and 2 cups brown sugar.

  3. Add 1 cup molasses and 1 cup strong coffee, mixing well.

  4. In another bowl, combine 4½ cups sifted flour, 2 teaspoons baking soda, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, 2 teaspoons cloves, 1 teaspoon mace, 1 pound raisins, 1 pound currants, and ¼ pound citron.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until combined.

  6. Pour the batter into round jelly pans, ensuring the loaves are 1½ inches thick.

Make the white layer

  1. For the white layer, cream together 1 cup butter and 4 cups white sugar.

  2. Add 2 cups sweet milk, 2 cups corn starch, 4½ cups sifted flour, 8 egg whites, 2 tablespoons baking powder, and ½ teaspoon extract of bitter almonds, mixing until smooth.

  3. Pour the white batter into separate pans and bake alongside the black layer until done.

Frost and assemble

  1. Once cooled, beat 1 egg white and mix with the grated rind and juice of 2 lemons, adding powdered sugar to create a thick frosting.

  2. Spread the frosting on each black loaf, then place a white loaf on top and frost the top.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Coffee + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together895 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  5. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Flour
Forms the cake's structure once its proteins set during baking.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the crumb as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender crumb through its fat.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color and deep sweetness to the dark layers.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and coffee to lift the dark batter.
Baking powder
Provides lift to the white batter as it heats in the oven.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding the flour mixture in stages and mixing only until combined keeps gluten development limited, so the cake stays tender rather than tough.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, molasses, coffee, flour, egg, cinnamon):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, molasses, coffee, flour, egg, cinnamon. 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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