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Dessert

Bride's Wedding Cake

A large cake made with flour, butter, sugar, currants, raisins, eggs, brandy, mace, nutmeg, and optional citron or molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Bride's Wedding Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Stir in the brandy, mace, and grated nutmeg.

  5. Gradually add the flour, mixing until just combined.

  6. Fold in the currants, raisins, and citron if using.

Bake and cool

  1. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans.

  2. Bake for 2.5 to 3 hours, checking for doneness.

  3. After baking, let the cake cool in the oven with the door closed for 8 to 10 minutes.

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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Currant + macetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,791 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as the batter bakes.
Unsalted butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving a tender, rich crumb.
Granulated sugar
Creams with butter for lightness and adds sweetness and browning.
Large eggs
Bind the batter and add structure, richness and lift.
Currants
Add concentrated fruit sweetness and chewy texture throughout the cake.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated fruit sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Adding the flour. Mixing only until just combined keeps gluten development low, so the cake stays tender instead of tough and dense.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, currant, raisin, egg, brandy. 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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