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Dessert

White Fruit Cake

A baked cake made with butter, fruit sugar, eggs, milk, flour, raisins, figs, dates, almonds, and citron peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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White Fruit Cake

Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 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. Cream the butter and fruit sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the egg whites and whole eggs, mixing well.

  4. Stir in the milk, baking powder, and flour until combined.

  5. Fold in the raisins, figs, dates, almonds, and citron peel.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for about 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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. Raisin + flourtop 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. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Dates + almondtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together217 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 trap air and add richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as it sets in the oven.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and moisture as they set.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise.
Fruit sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, fluffy creamed base.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Creaming the butter and fruit sugar. Beating until light and fluffy traps air in the fat, which helps the cake rise and gives it a lighter texture. Under-creaming leaves a dense crumb.

Swap the dates

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Datesthe original

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