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Dessert

Imperial Cake

A layered cake with colored batter, coconut, and maraschino glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and coconut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,294 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Imperial Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Whip the eggs, castor sugar, and vanilla sugar over boiling water until warm.

  2. Remove from heat and whip until cold and thick.

  3. Add the flour and coconut to the mixture. Mix well.

  4. Divide the mixture into three parts.

Colour and bake

  1. Color one part with carmine and flavor with almond essence.

  2. Color the second part with sap‑green and flavor with lemon essence.

  3. Leave the third part white.

  4. Sprinkle each part with more coconut.

  5. Place the parts in separate 8‑inch round baking tins.

  6. Bake in a moderate oven (350 °F / 175 °C) for about 30 minutes.

  7. Turn out the cakes and let cool.

  8. Cut each cake into two horizontal slices.

  9. Spread chocolate‑flavored Vienna icing on the red portions.

  10. Spread green icing on the green portions.

  11. Spread rose‑colored icing on the white portions.

  12. Stack the slices with the different colors arranged effectively.

Assemble and decorate

  1. Prepare a paste bottom about 1 inch thick and the same size as the cake.

  2. Bake the paste bottom until golden.

  3. Place the prepared cakes on the paste bottom.

  4. Glaze with maraschino glace and let set.

  5. Use a piping bag to decorate the top and sides with Vienna icing and rose‑colored icing.

  6. Let dry overnight.

  7. Serve on a round silver dish with dessert paper.

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. Vanilla + coconuttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Coconut + almondtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  3. Vanilla + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped to a foam that gives the cake its light, airy structure.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps stabilise the whipped egg foam.
Flour
Provides the set structure that holds the cake's crumb once baked.
Desiccated coconut
Adds moisture and chewy texture to the crumb.
Maraschino glace
Forms a glossy glaze over the finished cake.

The step that matters

Whip the eggs until cold and thick. The batter's lightness depends on a stable egg foam; under-whipping leaves a dense cake, and folding in flour too roughly deflates the foam.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, vanilla, flour, coconut, almond, chocolate):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Cherryfits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, vanilla, flour, coconut, almond, chocolate. 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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