Skip to main content
Dessert

Of Cake

A spiced sherry cake mixture with candied peel, raisins, almonds, and spices, used as a filling between cake layers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and orange 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 ↓

Of Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Mix egg yolks, candied lemon and orange peel, butter, raisins, sugar, sherry, and chopped almonds in a bowl.

  2. Add vanilla, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice to taste.

  3. Cook the mixture in a double boiler until very thick.

Finish and assemble

  1. Let it cool, then spread it between cake layers.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Orange + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + almondtop 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the filling as they cook and bind it into a rich custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps soften the texture of the filling.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich mouthfeel in the filling.
Sherry
Adds liquid and a fruity, aromatic flavour to the filling.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness to the filling.

The step that matters

Cooking the filling in a double boiler until very thick. Egg yolks thicken gently as they heat; over direct high heat they can scramble. Gentle, indirect heat in a double boiler lets the mixture thicken smoothly without curdling.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, lemon, orange, butter, sugar, sherry, 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.

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipes