Why it works: Raisin and flour 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
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Seed and chop the prunes.
Chop the raisins, citron, currants, and orange peel.
Dissolve the baking soda in a little water and add it to the molasses.
Flour the chopped fruit well and mix all ingredients together.
Bake in a preheated oven at 300°F (150°C) for four hours.
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.
-
Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,180 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
-
Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,577 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
-
Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,684 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
-
Currant + orangetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,034 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, orange, molasses, flour):
- Figfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Lemonfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, orange, molasses, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
More fruit cake recipes
You might also like
Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes
Orange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipes
Orange Gelatin100 recipes
Molasses Cookies96 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.