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Dessert

Lady Baltimore Cake

A layered cake with butter, sugar, flour, baking powder, milk, egg whites, raisins, pecans, figs, and a sugar‑water frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

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.

Make the cake batter

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

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

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.

  4. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture alternately with the milk, mixing well.

  5. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  6. Fold the beaten egg whites into the batter.

  7. Divide the batter into layers.

  8. Bake the layers until golden brown.

Make the frosting and filling

  1. For the frosting, boil the sugar and water until it reaches a thread stage.

  2. Pour the hot syrup over the beaten egg whites.

  3. Beat the mixture until cool.

  4. Add the vanilla to the frosting.

  5. For the filling, mix the raisins, pecans, and chopped figs together.

  6. Combine the filling with enough frosting to moisten.

  7. Reserve some frosting for the top.

Assemble and finish

  1. Assemble the cake by layering the cake with the filling.

  2. Top the assembled cake with plain frosting.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  5. Vanilla + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together782 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake once combined with liquid and baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the layers rise and become light.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks to lighten the batter and add structure to the cake.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, boiled with water, forms the syrup for the frosting.
Figs
Add moisture and sweetness to the filling.

The step that matters

Pour the hot syrup over the beaten egg whites. The syrup must reach thread stage and be poured in a steady stream while beating; this cooks the egg whites slightly and sets them into a stable, glossy frosting. Pouring too fast or too cool can leave it runny or grainy.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Blueberryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, milk, egg, vanilla, meat. 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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