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Dessert

Tutti-frutti Cake

A fruit cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, milk, quince jelly, raisins, nuts, coconut, and topped with egg white.

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 ↓

Tutti-frutti Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter in a bowl.

  2. Gradually add the sugar, mixing well.

  3. Add the beaten yolks of the eggs one at a time.

  4. Stir in the vanilla extract.

  5. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour and baking powder twice.

  6. Stir the flour mixture into the butter mixture, alternating with the milk.

  7. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  8. Pour the batter into shallow pans.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 40 minutes.

  2. Once baked, spread one layer with quince jelly.

  3. Top with raisins, nuts, coconut, and beaten egg white.

  4. Place the top layer on.

  5. Cover with boiled icing.

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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

  3. Vanilla + quincetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together33 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

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

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light texture when creamed with butter.
Eggs
Yolks add richness and structure, while whipped whites add lift and airiness.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter for an even, tender crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Gentle folding keeps the air whipped into the whites. Overmixing deflates the batter, so the cake bakes up denser and less light.

Swap the quince

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Quincethe original

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