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Dessert

Watermelon Cake

A layered cake with white and dark batters, flavored with butter, milk, sugar, eggs, and raisins or currants as watermelon seeds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Watermelon 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 the batters

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together ½ cup butter, ½ cup milk, and 1½ cups sugar. Add the beaten egg whites and 2 teaspoons baking powder; mix well.

  3. In another bowl, combine 1 cup red sugar, ½ cup white sugar, ½ cup butter, ½ cup milk, and 3 egg yolks. Stir in 2 teaspoons baking powder and mix until smooth.

  4. In the red batter, add raisins or currants to represent watermelon seeds.

Bake

  1. Layer the white and dark batters in a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 25-30 minutes 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.

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

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

  2. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  3. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Beaten stiff to trap air, giving the white layer lift and a light crumb.
Egg yolks
Add richness and fat to the dark batter, tenderising its crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavour in both batters.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep it moist and tender.

The step that matters

Layering the white and dark batters. Pouring the two batters in carelessly can blur the colour contrast that makes the watermelon look. Spoon each batter gently so the layers stay distinct as the cake bakes.

Swap the raisin

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

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

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