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Raisin Filling for Cake

A sweet raisin filling for cakes made from egg whites, sugar, water, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Raisin Filling for Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Stir in the sugar and water.

  3. Cook the mixture in a double boiler for 10 minutes.

  4. Stir in the chopped raisins.

Assemble

  1. Spread the filling between the cake 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. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Egg + raisintop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,556 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that gives the filling its light, airy structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and, once cooked with the whites, helps it set into a glossy texture.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the filling.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture in a double boiler. Gentle, indirect heat cooks the egg whites and sugar slowly so they thicken without scrambling or becoming grainy. Direct high heat would curdle the eggs.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Lemonfits about as well
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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