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Dessert

Lady Baltimore Cake

A layered sponge cake with raisins, pecans, figs, and a vanilla-lemon icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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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 ↓

Lady Baltimore Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the cake

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Cream the butter, then gradually add the sugar while beating constantly.

  3. Pour in the water and sift in the flour gradually, beating until very smooth.

  4. Mix in the vanilla extract, then fold in the baking powder and the whisked egg whites until combined.

  5. Divide the batter into three square layer cake pans and bake for about 20 minutes, or until firm.

  6. Remove from the oven and cool the cakes.

Make the filling and icing

  1. For the filling, cook 2 cups of sugar and ¼ cup of water until it spins a thread.

  2. Pour the syrup in a thin stream over the well-beaten egg whites, continuing to beat until cold.

  3. Flavor the mixture with ½ teaspoon vanilla extract and ¾ teaspoon lemon extract.

  4. Stir in the chopped nuts, raisins, and figs into half of the icing mixture and spread between the cake layers.

  5. Ice the top and sides of the cake with the reserved plain icing.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Vanilla + figtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together324 recipes

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

  3. Raisin + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

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

  4. Vanilla + nutstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together638 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Egg whites
Whipped to foam, they add structure and lightness to the batter and the icing.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure once heated and set.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cakes rise in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, cooked to a syrup, gives the icing its body and sheen.
Figs
Add moisture and chewy sweetness to the nut and fruit filling.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot syrup into the egg whites. Pour the syrup in a thin stream while beating constantly. Pouring it too fast or all at once can cook the egg whites unevenly and deflate the foam, leaving a loose icing.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, sugar, flour, vanilla, raisin, 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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