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Dessert

Lady Baltimore Cake

A moist cake made with eggs, butter, sugar, flour, and a sweet filling of sugar, egg whites, boiling water, lemon juice, walnuts, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 993 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Lady Baltimore 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.

Prepare

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

Make the cake batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Slowly add the sweet milk to the butter mixture.

  3. Beat the eggs separately; add the yolks to the butter and sugar mixture.

  4. Alternately add the egg whites and flour to the mixture, mixing thoroughly.

  5. Add the almond extract and mix well.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, combine 3 cups of sugar, the whites of 4 eggs, and ½ cup of boiling water in a saucepan.

  2. Add lemon juice to taste and boil for 10 minutes or until it threads.

  3. Pour the hot syrup over the beaten egg whites and beat until cool.

  4. Fold in the chopped walnuts and seeded raisins.

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. Almond + walnuttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together993 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Lemon + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,149 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Provide structure and richness, with whites beaten to lift the batter and form the filling.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the butter cream to a light texture; cooks into the filling syrup.

The step that matters

Boiling the filling syrup and pouring it over the whites. The syrup must reach a thread stage so it is hot enough to cook the beaten whites. Pour it in a steady stream while beating; if the syrup is not hot enough, the filling stays loose and soft.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, butter, sugar, flour, almond, walnut. 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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