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Dessert

A Large Rich Two-guinea Cake

A rich cake made with butter, eggs, powdered sugar, spices, citrus peel, almonds, flour, currants, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

A Large Rich Two-guinea Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

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

  2. In a large copper preserving pan, rub the butter until very fine.

  3. In another large copper pan, whisk the eggs for 10 minutes.

  4. Add the powdered sugar to the eggs.

  5. Whisk the mixture over low heat until warm.

  6. Remove the mixture from heat.

  7. Whisk the mixture until cold.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the egg and sugar mixture with the butter using your hands.

  2. Add the mace, cinnamon, and brandy, and mix well.

  3. Chop the lemon peel, orange peel, citron, and sweet almonds.

  4. Add the chopped ingredients to the mixture.

  5. Sift in half of the flour.

  6. Add the currants.

  7. Pound the bitter almonds with a little powdered sugar to prevent oiling.

  8. Add the rest of the flour.

Bake

  1. Line a large cake pan with parchment paper and place four sheets inside and at the bottom.

  2. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

  3. Bake in the preheated oven.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Cinnamon + orangetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Adds richness and tenderness by coating flour and keeping the crumb soft.
Eggs
Provide structure and binding, and trap air when whisked to lighten the cake.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins and starches set in the oven.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and dissolves smoothly into the eggs and butter for a fine texture.

The step that matters

Pound the bitter almonds with powdered sugar. Bitter almonds release oil when ground alone. Pounding them with sugar lets the sugar absorb the oil, so the batter does not turn greasy or separate.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, sugar, cinnamon, brandy, lemon, orange):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, sugar, cinnamon, brandy, lemon, orange. 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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