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Dessert

Rich Plum Cake, or Wedding Cake

A dense, buttery cake made with plum, citrus peel, almonds, raisins, currants, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 ↓

Rich Plum Cake, or 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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

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

  4. Stir in the diced citron, orange, and lemon peel.

  5. In a separate bowl, mix the powdered almonds with an equal amount of sugar. Cook the almond mixture in an iron pot over low heat, stirring constantly until dry.

  6. Combine the cooked almond mixture with the butter mixture.

  7. Fold in the minced raisins, whole raisins, currants, and mixed spice.

  8. In another bowl, beat the reserved egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently fold into the batter.

Bake

  1. Grease and line a large cake pan with parchment paper, then dust with flour.

  2. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.

  3. Bake for 4 hours or until a skewer 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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  3. Almond + raisintop 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. Orange + almondtop 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the dense batter together as it bakes.
Unsalted butter
Adds richness and tenderness through fat that coats the flour and keeps the crumb soft.
Eggs
Bind the batter and, as whites beaten to stiff peaks, lighten its dense texture.
Almonds
Add body, nutty aroma and moisture to the crumb once ground and dried.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and, creamed with butter, traps air for a lighter texture.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture to the cake's dense crumb.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten egg whites. Whites beaten to stiff peaks trap air that lifts the heavy batter; folding gently preserves that air, while overmixing deflates it and leaves a denser cake.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Orangethe original
  4. Coconutfits about as well

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