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Dessert

A Fine Bride Cake

A cake made with flour, sugar, butter, eggs, currants, raisins, almonds, citrus peel, spices, and fruit syrup.

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

A Fine Bride Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter by hand until smooth.

  2. Beat in the sugar for 15 minutes.

  3. Whip the egg whites until frothy, then mix with the butter and sugar.

  4. Beat the yolks for at least 30 minutes and add them to the mixture.

  5. Gradually dust in the flour while beating the mixture continuously.

  6. Add the remaining ingredients gradually, continuing to beat until the oven is ready.

Bake

  1. Butter a cake hoop and line it with buttered paper before pouring in the batter.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for 4 hours.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped whites lighten the batter, while yolks add richness and help bind it.
Fresh butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Fine flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and, creamed with butter, helps create a light texture.
Currants
Add fruit sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture to the batter.

The step that matters

Beating the yolks and the flour into the batter. Yolks and flour must be incorporated gradually while beating so the batter stays smooth and emulsified. Adding flour too fast can create lumps and a dense, uneven crumb.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, raisin, almond, lemon, orange):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, raisin, almond, lemon, orange. 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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