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Dessert

Bride-Cake

A cake made with almonds, candied citron, orange, lemon, brandy, butter, sugar, eggs, flour, spices, and currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon 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 ↓

Bride-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

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Blanch the almonds and slice them thinly.

  3. Prepare a cake pan by wrapping three sheets of paper around the bottom and greasing it with butter.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter in a bowl, then gradually beat in the sugar for 15 minutes.

  2. Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then fold them into the butter and sugar mixture.

  3. Beat the egg yolks for 30 minutes, then mix them into the batter.

  4. Add the flour, mace, and nutmeg, and mix well.

  5. Stir in the brandy, currants, and almonds gently.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into the pan, layering the sweetmeats with the batter.

  2. Bake for 3 hours, covering with paper if it browns too quickly.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

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

  4. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Almond + buttertop 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

Eggs
Whipped whites give lift and an airy crumb, while yolks add richness and structure.
Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich texture.
All-purpose flour
Its proteins set during baking to form the cake's structure.
Sweet almonds
Add texture and a nutty flavour, and contribute fat for moistness.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps hold air when creamed with butter.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour to the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Whites must be whipped to stiff peaks and folded in gently, since deflating the foam removes the air that gives the cake its lift.

Swap the orange

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

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

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