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Dessert

Ambrosia Cake

A coconut cream-filled cake with a light, buttery batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Ambrosia 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, mix flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

  3. In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  4. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  5. Gradually add the flour mixture and milk, alternating between them.

  6. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Make the filling and finish

  1. For the filling, whip the cream and fold in the grated coconut, sugar, orange juice, and orange rind.

  2. Once the cake is cool, fill and frost with the coconut cream mixture.

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

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

  5. Coconut + orangetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together584 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter set as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, fluffy creamed base.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
Heavy cream
Whipped to give the filling and frosting a light, airy texture and moisture.

The step that matters

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beating air into the butter and sugar creates tiny bubbles that expand in the oven, helping the cake rise and giving it a lighter texture.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, cream, butter, sugar, milk, egg, 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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