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Dessert

White Fruit Cake

A sweet cake made with sugar, butter, milk, flour, baking powder, lemon extract, raisins, citron, almonds, coconut, brandy, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the sweet milk and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and Royal Baking Powder.

  5. Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients.

  6. Stir in the lemon extract, raisins, citron, almonds, coconut, and brandy.

Fold and bake

  1. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter.

  3. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  4. Bake for about 1.5 to 2 hours or 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. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

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

  3. Almond + coconuttop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  4. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Whites of 8 eggs
Beaten to stiff peaks and folded in, they lighten the batter and help it rise.
Royal baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, leavening the cake so it rises and becomes tender.
Butter
Creamed with the sugar, it adds richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Creamed with butter, it sweetens the cake and helps create a fine, even texture.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture to the finished cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when beaten to stiff peaks. Folding gently keeps that air in the batter; stirring vigorously deflates it and yields a denser cake.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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