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Dessert

Neapolitan Cake

A layered cake with a white batter and a dark molasses‑raisin batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Neapolitan 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 batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy, then add the sweet milk and mix well.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder, then gradually add to the wet mixture.

  4. Incorporate the egg whites and mix until smooth.

Bake and assemble

  1. Divide the batter into two layers and bake until golden.

  2. For the dark batter, mix the remaining ingredients: molasses, raisins, cinnamon, cloves, yolks, a little butter, flour, and baking powder.

  3. Bake the dark batter in one layer.

  4. Once cooled, layer the dark cake between the two white layers.

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. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 create a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Eggs
Whites add lift and structure, while yolks add richness and tenderness.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness, and the dark color of the middle layer.

The step that matters

Layering the dark cake after it cools. Cutting or stacking a warm cake can crumble it or make layers slide, because the crumb is still soft and steam is still escaping. Letting each layer cool fully keeps the structure firm enough to stack cleanly.

“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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