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Dessert

White Fruit Cake

A light cake made with egg whites, butter, sugar, almonds, citron, coconut, lemon, orange peel, rose water, baking powder, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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White Fruit Cake

Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

White Fruit 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

  2. In a large bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  3. In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

Make the batter

  1. Gradually add the beaten egg whites to the butter mixture, folding gently.

  2. In a separate bowl, combine the almonds, citron, grated coconut, lemon juice and rind, orange peel, and rose water.

  3. Sift the flour and baking powder together, then fold into the wet mixture.

  4. Add the fruit and nut mixture, stirring until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Almond + coconuttop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  3. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Orange + rosetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together876 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they give the cake lift and an airy, light crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and tender texture.
Sugar
Creamed with butter to add sweetness and help build a light, fluffy base.
Almonds
Add body, nutty flavour and a moist, dense texture to the batter.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises.

The step that matters

Folding the beaten egg whites into the butter mixture. Folding gently keeps the air whipped into the egg whites. Stirring hard would deflate the batter, leaving a denser cake after baking.

Swap the coconut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, sugar, almond, lemon, orange, rose):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, sugar, almond, lemon, orange, rose. 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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