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Dessert

The Queen's Wedding Cake

A large fruit cake made with eggs, sugar, butter, flour, almonds, citron, raisins, currants, spices, brandy, and boiled milk.

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 ↓

The Queen's Wedding Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

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

  2. Dry and slightly brown the flour, white sugar, and almonds in the oven.

  3. Separate the eggs and beat the whites until stiff.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar until smooth.

  2. Add the flour and beaten eggs alternately to the butter mixture.

  3. Mix in the boiled milk and spices.

  4. Gently fold in the fruit and 1 pint of brandy using a wooden spatula.

Bake and age

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared pan, raising it from the bottom of the oven.

  2. Bake for 4 hours in an evenly heated oven.

  3. Once baked and cooled, pour the remaining pint of brandy over the cake.

  4. Wrap the cake in parchment paper and store in a box.

  5. Once a year, remove the cake from the box and pour another pint of brandy over it.

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. Almond + raisintop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

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

  3. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites beaten stiff and folded in provide lift and an airy, light structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cake a rich, tender texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the heavy fruit and batter together as it bakes.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, along with a deeper caramel flavour.
Raisins
Add sweetness, moisture and chewy texture throughout the cake.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour, and helps preserve the cake as it ages.

The step that matters

Baking the batter for 4 hours. A dense fruitcake batter needs a long, gentle bake so the centre sets fully without the outside over-browning. Placing the pan higher in the oven, as the record directs, helps limit scorching on the bottom.

Swap the currant

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

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

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