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Dessert

Bride Cake

A fruit cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, spices, cream, flour, currants, sultanas, almonds, citron, and candied orange peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Bride Cake

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Bride Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

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

  3. Stir in the powdered mace and cinnamon, followed by the cream.

  4. In a separate bowl, lightly mix the flour and all the dried fruits.

  5. Gradually add the flour and fruit mixture to the wet ingredients, one-third at a time.

  6. Pour the batter into a round cake pan.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 3 to 4 hours.

  2. Once cooled, ice with hard icing—almond, rose, or vanilla.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  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
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Sugar
Creams with butter to create air bubbles and adds sweetness and gentle browning.
Eggs
Provide structure as they set and help bind the batter together.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Zante currants
Add moisture, chewiness and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the flour and fruit mixture. Adding the flour in portions and mixing gently keeps the batter smooth and prevents overworking, which would toughen the cake and let the heavy fruit sink.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, cinnamon, cream, flour, currant. 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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