Skip to main content
Dessert

Farina Cake

A layered cake made with egg yolks, sugar, walnuts, farina, baking powder, egg whites, whipped cream, and grated pineapple.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Farina 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.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together for 15 minutes.

  2. Fold in the chopped walnuts, farina, and baking powder.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until frothy and gently fold them into the mixture.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake the batter in three layers at 350°F (175°C).

  2. Once cooled, layer the cake with thick whipped cream and grated pineapple, using plenty of filling.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Walnut + pineappletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together465 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  3. Sugar + pineappletop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Walnut + creamtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Enrich the batter with richness and help bind it together.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam to lighten the batter and give the cake its rise.
Farina
Provides the body and structure of the cake's crumb.
Walnuts
Add texture and a nutty flavour to the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas to help the cake rise.
Whipped cream
Adds moisture and a creamy filling between the layers.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites beaten to frothy foam trap air that gives the cake its lift. Folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps that air from collapsing and the batter light.

Swap the pineapple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, walnut, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, walnut, cream. 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.

You might also like

Pineapple SherbetPineapple Sherbet116 recipesPineapple PuddingPineapple Pudding72 recipesPineapple CreamPineapple Cream58 recipesPineapple JellyPineapple Jelly39 recipes