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Watermelon Cake

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Watermelon Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather slow oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

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

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

  3. Add the egg whites and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, alternating with the sweet milk.

  6. Take a little more than half of the batter and mix in the liquid cochineal and raisins.

  7. Pour the red batter into the center of a greased cake pan and then pour the remaining batter around it.

  8. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

  9. Once cooled, cover the cake with green 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Flour + spinachtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, sugar, cream, milk, egg, raisin. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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