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Dessert

Rich Wedding Cake

A layered cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, brandy, molasses, flour, dried currants, citron, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Rich Wedding 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

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

  2. Beat the egg whites and yolks separately.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the molasses.

  4. Cut the citron into thin slices.

  5. Toss the currants in a little flour before adding them to the cake batter.

  6. Grate the nutmegs.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar until smooth.

  2. Stir in the egg yolks, then the egg whites, molasses with baking soda, brandy, spices, flour, and currants.

Bake

  1. Pour a little batter into a buttered baking pan, add a layer of citron, then more batter, and repeat until the pan is full.

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. Brandy + curranttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Brandy + clovetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,362 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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
Whipped separately and folded in, they lighten the dense batter and add structure as it bakes.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it sets in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness, and acidity that activates the baking soda.
Dried currants
Add chewy pockets of fruit sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in the molasses before mixing. Baking soda needs an acid to release gas; the molasses supplies it, so dissolving the soda first spreads it evenly and helps the cake rise uniformly.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, brandy, molasses, flour, currant):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, brandy, molasses, 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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