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Dessert

White Fruit Cake

A light cake made with egg whites, sugar, butter, milk, flour, baking powder, raisins, citron, currants, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 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 large bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff.

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

  4. Add the milk to the butter mixture and mix well.

  5. Sift the flour and baking powder together, then gradually add to the wet ingredients.

  6. Toss the raisins, citron, and currants in a little flour to coat them.

  7. Fold the fruit and lemon juice into the batter gently.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 30-40 minutes 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped until stiff, they give the cake a light, airy structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Creamed with butter, it adds sweetness and helps give a soft texture.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise in the oven.
Milk
Adds moisture to the batter, keeping the crumb soft.

The step that matters

Fold the fruit and lemon juice into the batter gently.. Vigorous stirring develops gluten and deflates the air beaten into the batter, leading to a dense, tough cake. Gentle folding keeps the batter light and spreads the fruit evenly.

Swap the currant

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

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

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