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Dessert

Ambrosia Filling for Cake

A light, sweet filling made with beaten egg whites, powdered sugar, coconut, and orange.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and orange work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 584 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Ambrosia Filling for Cake

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg whites for 20 minutes until stiff.

  2. Gradually add the powdered sugar while continuing to beat.

  3. Fold in the desiccated coconut.

  4. Grate the peel of one orange and add it to the mixture.

  5. Remove the pulp from the other two oranges and add it to the mixture.

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. Coconut + orangetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together584 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sugar + coconuttop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Egg + coconuttop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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

Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that gives the filling its light, airy structure.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves into the whipped whites to sweeten and stabilise the foam.
Desiccated coconut
Folded in to add chewy texture and sweetness to the filling.
Oranges
Orange peel adds aroma and orange pulp adds moisture and citrus acidity.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites hold air only when beaten to stiff peaks, and the foam is what gives the filling its light body. Adding sugar gradually keeps the foam stable, while under-beaten whites stay runny and collapse when the coconut and fruit are folded in.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pineapplefits better
  3. Bananafits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, 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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