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Dessert

White Fruit Cake

A fruit cake made with figs, dates, almonds, citron, raisins, and sweet milk, baked at 300°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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White Fruit Cake

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 ↓

White Fruit Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Cut the figs, dates, almonds, citron, and raisins into small pieces and dredge them with flour.

  3. In a large bowl, beat the egg whites until foamy.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the butter and sugar together until creamy.

  2. Add the sweet milk and mix well.

  3. Gradually add the flour and baking powder, then fold in the prepared fruit and nuts.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake slowly until a toothpick comes out clean.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Fig + datestop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Almond + raisintop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

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

  4. Fig + almondtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together519 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Almond + flourtop 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
Creams with the sugar to give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Egg whites
Beaten until foamy, they add lift and a light structure to the batter.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter and fruit together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking to help the cake rise.
Sugar
Creams with the butter and adds sweetness and browning to the crumb.
Dates
Add moisture and natural sweetness to the cake.

The step that matters

Dredge the fruit and nuts in flour before folding. Coating the chopped fruit and nuts in flour helps them stay suspended in the batter instead of sinking to the bottom of the pan.

Swap the dates

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, fig, sugar, milk, almond, flour, raisin. 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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