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Dessert

Silver Wedding Cake

A rich cake made with flour, butter, currants, dried fruits, nuts, eggs, milk, and flavored with orange flower water, lemon, nutmeg, and ratafia.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Hamilton, Margaret · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Silver Wedding Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix all the dry ingredients.

  2. Beat up the eggs separately.

Make the batter

  1. Add the milk and colouring, the essence, lemon juice and orange flower water.

  2. Beat all for 20 minutes.

Bake

  1. Bake for 6 hours or longer in a well‑lined greased tin.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

375Calories
17 gProtein
15 gFat
48 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Orange Flower1 medium (131g)62
Orange1 medium (131g)62
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Hamilton, Margaret. 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. See the original page.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  3. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten eggs add structure and lift to the batter as they set in the oven.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid so the dry ingredients combine into a batter.

The step that matters

Bake for 6 hours or longer in a well-lined greased tin. Long, gentle baking lets the heavy batter set through to the centre without drying the outside. A well-lined, greased tin keeps the cake from sticking and burning at the edges during the long bake.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, lemon, nutmeg):

  1. Orangethe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Blueberryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, lemon, nutmeg. 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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