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Dessert

Wedding Cake

A fruit and nut cake made with butter, flour, sugar, eggs, candied peel, dried fruit, almonds, spices, and optional brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Wedding Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fruit and nuts

  1. Wash, pick, and dry the currants.

  2. Cut the cherries into moderate-sized pieces.

  3. Shred the candied peel.

  4. Blanch and chop the almonds into very small pieces.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream the butter using a wooden spoon or your hands.

  2. Gradually add the sugar, flour, and eggs, mixing thoroughly.

  3. Incorporate the remaining ingredients a little at a time, beating the mixture well between each addition.

  4. Beat the cake for a full 30 minutes.

Bake

  1. Line a cake pan with double layers of buttered paper.

  2. Pour in the batter and place it on a metal baking sheet with 12 layers of paper underneath and 4 or 5 on top to prevent burning.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Orange + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

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 holds the batter together as it bakes.
Unsalted butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air and adds richness and tenderness.
Granulated sugar
Creams with the butter for a light texture and adds sweetness and browning.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure, moisture, and richness.
Almonds
Add crunch and nutty flavor while adding fat and body to the batter.

The step that matters

Beat the cake for a full 30 minutes. Long beating develops the batter's structure and incorporates air, so the cake rises evenly and holds a fine crumb. Stopping early can leave a dense, uneven texture.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, lemon, orange, almond, egg. 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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