Skip to main content
Dessert

Lady Baltimore Cake

A layered cake with butter, sugar, milk, flour, baking powder, vanilla, egg whites, raisins, pecans, figs, fruit and nut filling, and ice cream frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Lady Baltimore Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the cake layers

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

  2. Cream the butter and gradually add the sugar while beating constantly.

  3. Mix and sift the baking powder and flour, then add alternately with milk to the butter mixture.

  4. Add the vanilla or almond extract.

  5. Cut and fold in the beaten egg whites until stiff and dry.

  6. Turn the batter into three buttered and floured 7‑inch square pans.

  7. Bake in the preheated oven until golden.

Make the fruit and nut filling

  1. For the fruit and nut filling, combine 3 cups sugar and 1 cup water in a saucepan and bring to a boil.

  2. Boil until the syrup spins a thread when dropped from a spoon.

  3. Pour the syrup gradually into the beaten egg whites, continuing to beat until the mixture is spreadable.

  4. Add the raisins, pecans, and figs to the filling.

Make the frosting and assemble

  1. To make the ice cream frosting, combine 2 cups sugar and ⅓ cup water in a saucepan and bring to a boil.

  2. Boil until the syrup spins a thread when dropped from a spoon.

  3. Pour the syrup gradually into the beaten egg whites, beating constantly until the mixture is spreadable.

  4. Add the vanilla extract to the frosting.

  5. Assemble the cake by layering with the fruit and nut filling and covering the top and sides with ice cream 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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  4. Vanilla + nutstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together638 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender crumb.
Egg whites
Folded in for lift and structure, and whipped into the boiled syrup to make the fillings spreadable.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb once it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the layers rise in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, boiled into syrup, sets the fillings into a soft, spreadable texture.
Pecans
Add crunch and a toasty, nutty flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Pour the boiled syrup into the egg whites. The syrup must be poured in gradually while beating constantly. Pouring too fast can deflate the whites or cook them unevenly, leaving the frosting and filling runny or grainy instead of spreadable.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, flour, vanilla, egg, raisin. 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.

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes