Skip to main content
Dessert

Prince of Wales Cake

A two-part cake with a dark batter of butter, brown sugar, raisins, molasses, and a white batter of butter, powdered sugar, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Prince of Wales 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.

Make the dark layers

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together ¾ cup butter and 1½ cups brown sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Add ¾ cup milk, 3 cups flour, 1½ cups chopped raisins, 3 tablespoons molasses, 5 egg yolks, 1½ teaspoons cinnamon, ¾ teaspoon cloves, and 2 teaspoons baking powder. Mix well.

  4. Pour the dark batter into prepared cake pans and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make the white layers

  1. For the white part, cream together ¾ cup butter and 1½ cups powdered sugar.

  2. Add ¾ cup milk, 3 cups flour, 5 egg whites, and 2 teaspoons baking powder. Mix until smooth.

  3. Pour the white batter into prepared cake pans and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

Assemble

  1. Once cooled, layer the cakes alternately with boiled icing, placing a white layer on top.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the cake a tender crumb.
Eggs
Egg yolks and whites add structure and richness to the batter as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set in the oven.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and sweetness throughout the dark layers.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep flavor, and color to the dark batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cakes rise and turn light.

The step that matters

Creaming the butter and sugar. Beating butter with sugar traps air in the fat, which helps the cake rise and become light. If the butter is too cold or the mixing is too brief, the batter stays dense.

“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.

You might also like

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesClove CakeClove Cake53 recipes