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Dessert

Harlequin Cake

A layered cake made with white, yellow, and pink batters, colored and iced, topped with coconut.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and coconut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,294 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Harlequin 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.

Prepare the pink layer

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the butter and powdered sugar.

  3. Add the milk, then mix in the flour and beaten egg whites.

  4. Divide the batter in half.

  5. Color one half with strawberry coloring.

  6. Pour the pink batter into a prepared cake pan.

  7. Bake until done.

Make the yellow and chocolate layers

  1. In another bowl, cream together the butter and powdered sugar.

  2. Add the milk, then mix in the flour and beaten egg yolks.

  3. Divide this batter in half.

  4. Mix melted grated chocolate into one half.

  5. Pour the yellow batter into a prepared cake pan.

  6. Bake until done.

  7. Pour the chocolate batter into a prepared cake pan.

  8. Bake until done.

Ice and stack

  1. Ice each layer with vanilla icing.

  2. Sprinkle with grated coconut.

  3. Stack the layers in this order: chocolate, yellow, pink, and white.

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. Vanilla + coconuttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,294 recipes

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

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

  3. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  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
Creamed with sugar to give the cake richness and a tender crumb.
Powdered sugar
Creamed with butter to add sweetness and a fine, even texture.
Egg whites
Whipped into the batter to add structure and lift to the white layer.
Egg yolks
Enrich the yellow layer with fat and help bind the batter.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the layers together.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the layers rise while baking.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Coconutthe original
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Blueberryfits less well

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