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Dessert

Ambrosia Cake

A layered cake with coconut and orange, topped with a whipped egg white icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and orange work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 584 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Ambrosia 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

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

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until well combined.

  3. Gradually add the flour, baking powder, and salt, mixing well.

  4. Stir in the boiling water until smooth.

  5. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make the icing

  1. For the icing, beat the egg whites to a stiff froth, then gradually add pulverized sugar until stiff.

  2. Flavor the icing to taste.

Assemble and finish

  1. Once cooled, slice the cake into 4 layers.

  2. Layer the cake with icing, grated coconut, and orange slices alternately.

  3. Spread the icing over 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. Coconut + orangetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together584 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + coconuttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,315 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Eggs
Beaten with sugar to trap air, giving the cake structure and lift.
Flour
Forms the batter's main structure once set by baking.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise.
Egg whites
Whipped to a stiff froth to make a light, stable icing.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to a stiff froth for the icing. Egg whites must be whipped until they hold stiff peaks; under-whipped whites stay runny and the icing will not hold its shape. Adding sugar gradually helps the foam stay stable.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour, coconut. 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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