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Dessert

Rocky Mountain Cake

A moist cake made with butter, sugar, sweet milk, flour, egg whites, baking powder, coconut, figs, raisins, almonds, citron, dates, and currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Rocky Mountain 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. 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.

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 sweet milk and mix well.

  4. Gradually add the flour and baking powder, mixing until smooth.

  5. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then fold them into the batter.

  6. Divide the batter evenly into three deep jelly tins and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make the icing

  1. For the icing, beat the egg whites and gradually add the sugar until smooth.

Assemble and decorate

  1. Once the cakes are cool, ice both sides of each layer with the icing.

  2. Grate the fresh coconut and set aside.

  3. Blanch the almonds and chop half of them finely.

  4. Mix the chopped almonds with all the fruit and a small portion of the grated coconut.

  5. Spread the fruit mixture on each layer of cake.

  6. On the top layer, spread more fruit and decorate with whole almonds and sprinkle generously with grated coconut.

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

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

  3. Fig + raisintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

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

  4. Coconut + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together88 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that lifts the batter and gives a light crumb.
Flour
Its proteins form the gluten network that gives the cake its structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps hold moisture in the crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the layers rise.
Almonds
Add a nutty flavour and a contrasting crunch to the fruit layers.

The step that matters

Folding the whipped egg whites into the batter. Whipped whites hold air that makes the cake rise. Stirring them in vigorously deflates the foam, leaving dense layers, so fold gently until just combined.

Swap the coconut

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

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

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