Why it works: Almond and coconut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,093 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓
White Fruit Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
Sift the flour and mix in the baking soda and cream of tartar.
Make the batter
Cream the butter as you would for pound cake, then add the sugar and beat until combined.
Add the egg whites and flour mixture, and beat the batter until well combined.
Fold in about one-third of the fruit, reserving the rest for layering.
Bake
Pour the batter into a cake mold, layering in the reserved fruit as you go.
Bake slowly and carefully until done.
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.
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Almond + coconuttop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,093 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
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Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,673 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Adds richness and tenderness to the crumb as it is creamed with the sugar.
- Egg whites
- Provide structure and lift, setting the cake as it bakes.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the cake once it sets in the oven.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the cream of tartar to lighten the batter and help it rise.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter, stabilizing the egg whites and helping the rise with baking soda.
- White sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps tenderize the crumb when creamed with butter.
The step that matters
Bake slowly and carefully until done. A low oven temperature lets the heavy, fruit-filled batter cook through evenly without over-browning the outside. Fruit sinking or a dense, underbaked centre are common when the bake is rushed or the oven runs hot.
Swap the coconut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, butter, egg, almond, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutthe original
- Figfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, butter, egg, almond, cream. 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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