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Raisin Filling for Layer Cake

A sweet raisin and walnut filling for layer cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and walnut work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 647 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Raisin Filling for Layer Cake

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil sugar and water until it reaches a hair-like consistency.

  2. Pour the syrup over the beaten egg white.

  3. Stir in the chopped raisins and walnuts.

  4. Beat the mixture until it is spreadable.

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. Raisin + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together647 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 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. Egg + walnuttop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,037 recipes

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

  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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the filling and, cooked into syrup, gives it body that helps it set.
Egg white
Whipped with hot syrup, it forms a stable foam that gives the filling its light, spreadable structure.
Raisins
Add sweetness and a chewy texture that contrasts with the soft filling.
Walnuts
Add crunch and a toasty, nutty flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Cooking the syrup to a hair-like consistency. The sugar concentration determines how firm the filling sets. Pouring hot syrup over the egg white cooks and stabilises it, so the mixture thickens and becomes spreadable instead of runny.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, 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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