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Dessert

Bride Cake

A rich almond cake flavored with mace, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and spiced with brandy and sherry, finished with icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Bride Cake

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. 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 the ingredients

  1. Bruise the almonds with a little orange flower water.

  2. Powder the mace, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.

  3. Wash and cream the butter in a large basin.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the yolks and whites of the eggs separately; froth the whites.

  2. Gradually mix in the sugar with constant stirring.

  3. Add the frothed egg whites and yolks, then the almonds and spices.

  4. Gradually mix in the flour until blended.

  5. Beat well and add the currants gradually to distribute evenly.

  6. Smooth the mixture with brandy and sherry.

Bake and finish

  1. Line a baking tin with double buttered paper and fill it three-quarters full.

  2. Cover with paper and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

  3. Once baked, cover with almond icing, let it dry, and add sugar icing.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 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
Whipped whites and yolks give the cake its light, airy structure as it bakes.
Butter
Creamed with the sugar, it adds richness and a tender crumb.
Vienna flour
Its gluten forms the cake's main structure once the batter is set by heat.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the creamed butter hold air for lightness.
Sweet almonds
Add nutty flavour and moisture to the batter.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour to the batter.

The step that matters

Gradually mix in the flour until blended. Adding flour too quickly or overmixing it develops gluten and can make the cake dense and tough, while the air built up by the eggs and creamed butter is lost.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, butter, egg, sugar. 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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