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Dessert

Queen Cake

A sweet cake made with shortening, butter, lard, sugar, eggs, milk, flour, baking powder, citron, and optional raisins and currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Queen Cake

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 ↓

Queen 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the shortening, butter, and lard with the sugar until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the milk.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.

  6. Fold in the sliced citron and optional mixed fruit if desired.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into greased loaf pans.

  2. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Add structure and richness, setting the crumb as the cake bakes.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake's crumb together.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives a soft texture.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, contributing to a rich, tender crumb.
Sugar
Creaming with fat traps air and adds sweetness and browning.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise in the oven.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.. Overmixing once flour meets liquid develops gluten, which makes the cake tough and dense. Stop as soon as no dry flour streaks remain.

Swap the raisin

The recipe marks raisin as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, milk, flour, currant):

  1. Raisinthe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Peachfits less well

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