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Dessert

Layer Cakes

A multi-layered cake with white and dark layers, coconut, citron, almonds, raisins, currants, figs, spices, and brandy, finished with a sugar icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 26 ingredients
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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 ↓

Layer Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the white layer

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter, then add flour, egg whites, and baking powder.

  2. Mix in grated coconut, chopped citron, and sliced almonds.

  3. Bake in jelly cake pans.

Make the dark layer

  1. Cream sugar and butter, then add flour, egg yolks, raisins, currants, citron, figs, spices, and brandy.

  2. Bake in jelly pans.

Make the icing and assemble

  1. Boil sugar and water until brittle.

  2. Pour over beaten egg whites.

  3. Stir in minced almonds and grated coconut.

  4. Spread icing alternately on the black and white cakes and assemble.

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

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

  3. Coconut + almondtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Beaten whites give the white layer lightness and help it rise and set.
Egg yolks
Yolks add richness and tenderness to the dark layer's crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's layers together.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavor in the batter.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps brown it while creaming with butter adds air.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the white layer rises.

The step that matters

Boil sugar and water until brittle. Sugar syrup must reach the right stage; underheated syrup stays soft and won't set the beaten whites, while overheated syrup turns bitter and dark.

Swap the currant

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

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

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

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