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Dessert

White Fruit Cake

A light cake made with egg whites, butter, flour, fruit, and topped with a sugar syrup icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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White Fruit Cake

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 ↓

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.

Make the batter

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

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  3. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.

  4. Gradually add the beaten egg whites, mixing well.

  5. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

  6. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, alternating with the sweet milk.

  7. Stir in the brandy and mix until smooth.

  8. Fold in the chopped almonds, citron, and raisins.

Bake and ice

  1. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake until golden.

  2. For the icing, boil 1 cup of water with 2 cups of sugar until it ropes.

  3. Pour the hot syrup over 3 beaten egg whites, mixing until cool.

  4. Fold in the chopped fruit and spread between the cake layers.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + raisintop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Beaten to stiffness, they add lightness and airy structure to the batter.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to lift the batter as it bakes.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter, helping the baking soda produce lift.
Almonds
Add crunch and nutty flavour, along with moisture from the fruit mixture.

The step that matters

Pour the hot syrup over the beaten egg whites. Hot sugar syrup poured slowly into beaten whites cooks them gently and sets the icing into a glossy, stable foam. Pouring too fast or too cold can deflate it or leave it grainy.

Swap the raisin

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

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

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