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Dessert

Thanksgiving Cake

A layered cake with sugar glaze, egg white icing, nuts, figs, almonds, and coconut.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 519 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Thanksgiving Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cake

  1. Bake four layers of cake using your favorite recipe.

Make the icing

  1. In a saucepan, combine water and sugar; boil until thick.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  3. Pour the hot sugar mixture over the beaten egg whites and beat until cold.

Assemble the cake

  1. Spread icing on the first layer of cake and sprinkle with chopped hickory nuts or walnuts.

  2. Add a little more icing, then place another layer of cake on top.

  3. Ice this layer and cover with sliced figs.

  4. On the next layer, spread icing and top with blanched almonds.

  5. Finally, ice the top layer and sprinkle with shredded 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. Fig + almondtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together519 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Nuts + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together394 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Fig + coconuttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together88 recipes

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

  5. Nuts + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together142 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped into stiff peaks, they give the cooked sugar icing its light, airy, fluffy texture.
Sugar
Cooked with water into a thick syrup that sets into the icing and adds sweetness.
Hickory nuts or english walnuts
Chopped nuts add crunch and a rich, toasty flavor between the cake layers.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot syrup into the egg whites. The syrup must be hot and poured in a steady stream while beating, so it cooks the egg whites and forms a stable, glossy foam. Pouring it too early or too fast can deflate the whites or leave the icing runny.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, fig, almond, coconut):

  1. Pistachiofits better
  2. Brazil nutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, fig, 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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