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Dessert

Wedding Cake

A large spiced cake made with sugar, butter, flour, eggs, dried fruit, molasses, spices, and citrus zest.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Wedding Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Stir in the citron, currants, and stoned raisins.

  5. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, and mace.

  6. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, alternating with the molasses and wetting.

  7. Mix in the orange zest and nuts if using.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans.

  2. Bake for 4 to 5 hours or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and tenderness, and carries flavour through the batter.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, traps air for a lighter crumb.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour, and a deep, mildly bitter sweetness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to help the cake rise and brown.

The step that matters

Long, low bake until a toothpick comes out clean. A dense, fruit-heavy batter needs a low oven and a long bake so the centre sets without the outside over-browning or burning. Testing the centre with a toothpick confirms it is fully cooked, since the surface can look done before the middle is.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, egg, raisin, molasses, nutmeg. 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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