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Dessert

White Fruit Cake

A moist cake made with butter, sugar, sweet milk, flour, egg whites, baking powder, raisins, figs, almonds, citron, lemon extract, and optional coconut.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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White Fruit Cake

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 ↓

White Fruit Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

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

  3. Add the sweet milk and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.

  5. Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients, mixing thoroughly.

  6. Incorporate the egg whites into the batter.

  7. Sift a little flour over the chopped fruit and nuts, then fold them into the batter.

  8. Add the lemon extract and mix until combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 2 hours, checking for doneness with a skewer.

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.

  1. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

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

  3. Fig + almondtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together519 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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 add richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light texture when creamed with butter.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake and fruit together as it bakes.
Egg whites
Add structure and lift to the batter as they set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise.
Figs
Add moisture and chewy sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the fruit and nuts. Dusting the chopped fruit and nuts with a little flour helps keep them suspended rather than sinking to the bottom of the batter. Folding gently preserves the air in the batter so the cake stays light.

Swap the fig

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figthe original
  3. Coconutfits less well
  4. Peachfits less well

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