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Dessert

The Usual Wedding Cake

A spiced wedding cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, candied peel, currants, almonds, and rum or brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

The Usual Wedding Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Clean and pick over the currants.

  2. Chop the candied orange, citron, and lemon peel into shavings.

Make the batter

  1. Melt the butter and cream it until smooth.

  2. Add the powdered sugar, allspice, and cinnamon.

  3. Stir thoroughly for several minutes.

  4. Break in 3 or 4 eggs and mix well for a few more minutes.

  5. Continue adding eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  6. Add the currants, candied peels, and almonds to the mixture and mix well.

  7. Sift in the flour.

  8. Pour in the rum or brandy and mix until combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared tin hoop lined with buttered paper.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until done.

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. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Almond + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together512 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Unsalted butter
Adds richness and tender texture, and carries flavour through the batter.
Eggs
Bind the batter, add moisture and richness, and help it rise and set.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and helps tenderise the crumb when creamed with butter.
Currants
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs one at a time. Adding eggs gradually, and mixing well after each, lets the fat and liquid emulsify into the batter. Adding them too fast can make the batter separate or curdle, which affects the final texture.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, sugar, almond, cinnamon, egg, rum):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicethe original
  4. Clovefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, almond, cinnamon, egg, rum. 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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