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Lady Baltimore Cake

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and pecans work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 93 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Lady Baltimore Cake

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Prepare a cake using 6 egg whites and flavor it with rosewater.

  2. Ice the cake with white icing.

  3. For the filling, mix chopped raisins, figs (if using), and chopped nuts with some icing.

  4. Spread the filling between the layers of the cake.

  5. Ice the top of the cake plain and decorate with fruit.

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. Fig + pecanstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together93 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Raisin + pecanstop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together139 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Egg + pecanstop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,280 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + raisintop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,556 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Swap the fig

The recipe marks fig as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, raisin, pecans):

  1. Figthe original
  2. Datesfits about as well
  3. Vanillafits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, raisin, pecans. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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