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Dessert

Nut-fruit Cake

A fruit and nut cake made with raisins, currants, figs, citron, dates, ginger fruit, pine kernels, almonds, coconut, butter, flour, juices, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Pine and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 176 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Nut-fruit Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit and nuts

  1. Chop raisins, currants, figs, citron, dates, and ginger fruit, then mix thoroughly.

  2. Add pine kernels, chopped almonds, and grated coconut to the mixture.

Make the dough

  1. Cream butter with whole meal flour.

  2. Pour orange juice and lemon juice over the mixture.

  3. Knead in rice flour and work it well.

  4. Add beaten egg whites.

Shape and serve

  1. Roll out dough on a surface dusted with chestnut flour, cut into squares, and dry in the sun.

  2. Serve with whipped cream or nut cream.

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. Pine + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together176 recipes

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

  2. Fig + datestop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

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

  4. Fig + almondtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together519 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Almond + coconuttop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Beaten whites add lightness and help bind the dough together.
Butter
Fat that adds richness and tenderness to the dough.
Whole meal flour
Provides body and structure to the creamed butter base.
Orange juice
Adds moisture and fruity acidity to the mixture.
Raisins
Add natural sweetness and chewy texture.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, fig, dates, ginger, pine, almond, coconut):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Cherryfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, fig, dates, ginger, pine, almond, 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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