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Dessert

Gold and White Cake

A layered cake with gold and white batters, figs, and allspice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Gold and White 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.

Prepare the batters

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

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the sweet milk and flour, then fold in the egg whites.

  4. For the gold cake, mix sugar, butter, sweet milk, baking powder, flour, egg yolks, whole egg, allspice, and cinnamon.

Layer and bake

  1. Pour the white batter into two long pie tins.

  2. In one pie tin, layer half the gold batter and arrange the halved figs so they touch.

  3. Top with the remaining gold batter and bake until done.

Assemble

  1. Once baked, layer the cakes with frosting while warm, placing the gold cake between the white layers.

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. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + figtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together614 recipes

    Shared aroma: cinnamyl acetate (sweet aromatic, cinnamon).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Allspice + figtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together182 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 sets during baking to form the cake's crumb.
Egg whites
Trap air when folded in, helping the white layer rise and stay light.
Egg yolks
Add richness, fat, and golden color to the gold cake.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, making the cake rise.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Figs
Add moisture and natural sweetness to the gold layer.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Egg whites hold air that gives the white cake its lift. Overmixing knocks that air out and leaves a dense layer, so fold gently until just combined.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, flour, sugar, butter, cinnamon, fig. 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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