Name: White Fruit Cake
Ingredients: ¾ pound butter; 1 pound sugar; 8 egg whites; 1 pound flour; 2 tablespoons rose water; 2 teaspoons baking powder; ½ pound citron, chopped; ½ pound grated coconut; ½ pound blanched almonds, finely chopped

Why it works: Coconut and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,093 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓

White Fruit Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the egg whites and mix well.
Gradually add the flour and baking powder, mixing until combined.
Fold in the citron, grated coconut, and chopped almonds, ensuring they are well coated with flour.

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.

Coconut + almondtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,093 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,673 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,245 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Rose + almondtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,465 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

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

Swap the coconut

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

Raisinfits better
Vanillafits better
Figfits about as well
Coconutthe original

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