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Dessert

White Fruit Layer Cake

A layered cake made with butter, sugar, milk, flour, egg whites, baking powder, figs, raisins, citron, ginger, almonds, powdered sugar, lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

White Fruit Layer 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 batter

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

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

  3. Add the milk and mix well.

  4. Gradually add the flour and baking powder, mixing until smooth.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  6. Divide the batter into five layers and bake until golden.

Fill and frost

  1. For the filling, combine the figs, raisins, citron, ginger, and almonds with the beaten egg whites, powdered sugar, and lemon juice.

  2. Layer the cake with the filling while still hot.

  3. For the frosting, mix the egg white, powdered sugar, and lemon juice, then frost the top 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Fig + raisintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

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

  4. Milk + figtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Fig + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together208 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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 and give the cake a tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps build a light, fluffy texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the layers together.
Egg whites
Beaten and folded in, they add lift and a light, airy structure to the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the layers rise.
Figs
Add chewy texture and sweetness to the filling.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when beaten stiff and gently folded. Vigorous stirring deflates the foam, so the layers bake up dense instead of light.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, flour, egg, fig, 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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