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Dessert

Prince of Wales Cake

A two-layer cake with a light batter and a dark batter containing raisins and molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 ↓

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 light batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter for the light part.

  3. Add corn starch, sweet milk, cream of tartar, baking soda, flour, and the egg whites. Mix well.

  4. Pour the light batter into jelly pans and set aside.

Make the dark batter

  1. In another bowl, cream together the sugar and butter for the dark part.

  2. Add sour milk, flour, chopped raisins, baking soda dissolved in water, molasses, and the egg yolks. Mix well.

  3. Add cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg to the dark batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the dark batter over the light batter in the jelly pans.

  2. Bake until a toothpick 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites and yolks add structure and richness to the batter as it sets in the oven.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds tenderness and richness to both batters.
Sugar
Creamed with butter, it sweetens the batters and helps give a tender crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk and molasses to help the cake rise and brown.
Flour
Provides the main structure of both the light and dark batters.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and sweetness to the dark batter.

The step that matters

Pour the dark batter over the light batter. Pouring gently keeps the two batters from mixing too much, so the light and dark layers bake as distinct sections rather than blending into one shade.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, corn, milk, cream, flour, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, corn, milk, cream, flour, egg. 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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