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Dessert

Wedding Cake

A sweet cake made with powdered sugar, butter, egg yolks, flour, spices, egg whites, dried fruits, citron, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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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 ↓

Wedding Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the powdered sugar and butter.

  2. Add the well-beaten egg yolks and mix well.

  3. Gradually add ½ pound of sifted flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

  4. Fold in the whipped egg whites a little at a time with another ½ pound of sifted flour.

  5. Stir in the dredged currants, raisins, and citron.

  6. Finally, add the brandy and mix thoroughly.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into deep tins lined with well-buttered paper.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for two hours or longer.

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. 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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to form a structure that traps air for a tender crumb.
Egg whites
Whipped to foam, they lighten the batter and help it rise in the oven.
Egg yolks
Add richness and emulsify with the butter, helping bind the batter.
Flour
Provides the starch and gluten that set the cake's structure as it bakes.
Currants
Add chewy texture and fruitiness, dredged in flour so they stay suspended in the batter.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Egg whites hold air only while whipped; overmixing or stirring them hard deflates the foam, leaving a denser cake. Fold gently, adding them a little at a time with the flour.

Swap the currant

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

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

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