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Dessert

Wedding Cake, No. 2

A rich butter cake with currants, raisins, citron, lemon peel, almonds, brandy, and spices.

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

Wedding Cake, No. 2

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

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

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. Gradually add the flour, mixing until just combined.

  4. Fold in the currants, sultana raisins, citron, candied lemon peel, and almonds.

  5. Stir in the brandy and spices until evenly distributed.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared cake pan.

  2. Bake for about 6 hours or until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.

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. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving a tender, rich crumb and fat for flavor.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps create a light, creamed texture with the butter.
Currants
Add chewy texture and concentrated fruit sweetness throughout the cake.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor to the batter.

The step that matters

Bake for about 6 hours or until a skewer comes out clean. A long, low bake at 300°F lets the heavy, fruit-filled batter cook through to the center without the outside over-browning. Testing the center with a skewer confirms it is fully set, since a dense batter can look done on top while still being raw inside.

Swap the currant

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

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

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