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Dessert

Minnehaha Cake

A layered cake with butter, sugar, flour, milk, eggs, raisins, figs, dates, walnuts, and a boiled icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Minnehaha 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, mixing well after each addition.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder, then add to the butter mixture alternately with the milk.

  5. Divide the batter into layers and bake until golden.

Make the filling and icing

  1. For the filling, chop the raisins, figs, dates, and walnuts finely.

  2. Prepare a boiled icing by heating 2 cups of sugar with water until it reaches the soft ball stage, then beat in the egg whites.

Assemble and decorate

  1. Spread the fruit and nut mixture between the layers of cake.

  2. Cover the entire cake with another layer of icing.

  3. Decorate the top and sides with walnut halves while the icing is still soft.

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

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

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

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

  4. Raisin + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Milk + figtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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 trap air, giving the cake a tender, fine crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the layers set as they bake.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure once its proteins set in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the layers rise and become light.
Walnuts
Add texture and fat to the chopped fruit and nut filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, in the icing, cooks to a soft ball stage for a set, glossy coating.

The step that matters

Boiling the icing to the soft ball stage. Sugar syrup must reach the right temperature to set properly. Too little cooking leaves the icing runny, while overcooking makes it hard and grainy. Beating in the egg whites while the syrup is hot creates a stable, fluffy icing.

Swap the dates

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

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

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