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Dessert

Tipsy Cake

A sponge cake soaked in brandy, sherry or raisin wine, lemon juice, topped with blanched almond spikes and rich custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,209 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Tipsy Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Soak the cake

  1. Place the sponge cake in a glass dish for serving.

  2. Make a small hole in the center of the cake.

  3. Mix the sherry or raisin wine with the brandy and lemon juice, then pour it into the hole to soak the cake thoroughly.

Decorate and serve

  1. Blanch the almonds, cut them into spikes, and stick them all over the cake.

  2. Pour the rich custard around the cake.

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 + sherrytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Sherry + almondtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together517 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Brandy + almondtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,969 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Sherry + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Sponge cake
Its porous crumb absorbs the soaking liquid, becoming soft and moist.
Brandy
Adds a warm, aromatic spirit flavour that carries through the cake.
Sherry or raisin wine
Adds sweetness and fruity depth to the liquid soaking the cake.
Rich custard
Eggs and dairy make a rich, smooth sauce that adds moisture and creaminess.

The step that matters

Soaking the cake thoroughly. The liquid is poured into a single hole, so it must spread slowly through the porous sponge. If it is poured too fast, it pools and leaves dry pockets, while the cake soaks up the liquid unevenly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (brandy, sherry, almond):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, 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.

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