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Dessert

Tutti Frutti Cake

A layered cake with sugar, butter, milk, egg whites, flour, baking powder, and fruit, topped with a sugar syrup frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Tutti Frutti 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 cake batter

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

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

  3. Add the milk and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then fold the egg whites into the batter gently.

  5. Sift together the flour and baking powder, then gradually add to the batter.

Bake and frost

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

  2. For the frosting, boil the water and 3 cups of sugar until thick and waxy.

  3. Beat the 2 egg whites to a stiff froth and pour the syrup over them, beating until cool.

  4. Add the chopped almonds, raisins, and citron to the frosting.

  5. Spread the frosting between the layers and over the top and sides of the cake.

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. Almond + raisintop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air, giving a tender, fine crumb.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks to lighten the batter and help the cake rise.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, boiled with water, forms the thick frosting syrup.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid that hydrates the flour into batter.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiled syrup over the egg whites. The syrup must be thick and hot enough to cook the whites into a stable, glossy frosting while beating. Pouring it too early or too cool leaves the frosting runny or grainy.

“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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