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Dessert

Queen Victorias Wedding Cake

A multi-layered cake made with eggs, milk, currants, almonds, citron, sugar, flour, butter, spices, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Queen Victorias Wedding Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Blanch and cut the almonds into strips.

  2. Slice the citron.

  3. Seed and clean the currants.

  4. Wash and dry the currants the day before mixing.

  5. Dry and slightly brown the flour, sugar, and almonds in a slow oven (300 °F / 150 °C).

Make the batter

  1. Separate the eggs and beat them.

  2. Cream the butter.

  3. Add the brown sugar and cream together.

  4. Add the flour and eggs alternately.

  5. Mix the spices with the flour.

  6. Stir in the boiled milk.

  7. Beat in the fruit with a wooden spatula.

  8. Add 1 pint of brandy.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake for 4 hours in a moderate oven (350 °F / 175 °C).

  2. Raise the pan from the bottom of the oven while baking.

  3. When baked and cooled, turn it over.

  4. Pour the remaining pint of brandy over it.

  5. Wrap in paraffin paper and box it.

  6. Once a year, remove from the box and pour over another pint of brandy.

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. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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
Provide structure and moisture, and bind the rich batter together.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and creaming it traps air that lightens the cake.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the crumb brown in the oven.
Currants
Add sweetness, chewy texture and moisture to the dried fruit mix.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour to the fruit cake.

The step that matters

Bake for 4 hours in a moderate oven. A long, moderate bake lets heat reach the centre before the outside over-browns. Too hot and the crust darkens while the middle stays wet or sunken.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, flour, sugar, almond, butter, 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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