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Dessert

Queen Victoria's Wedding Cake

A rich, fruit‑laden cake made with eggs, flour, sugar, almonds, currants, citron, spices, butter, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Queen Victoria'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. Blanch and cut the almonds into strips.

  2. Slice the citron, seed and clean the raisins, and wash and dry the currants the day before mixing.

  3. Dry and slightly brown the flour, sugar, and almonds in a 300°F (150°C) oven.

Make the batter

  1. Separate the eggs and beat them.

  2. Cream the butter, then add the sugar and cream together.

  3. Add the flour and eggs alternately, mixing the spices with the flour.

  4. Then add the milk and beat in the fruit with a wooden spatula.

Bake and store

  1. Add 1 pint of the brandy and bake for 4 hours in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

  2. Raise the pan from the bottom of the oven while baking.

  3. When baked and cooled, turn it over and pour the remaining pint of brandy over it.

  4. Wrap in paraffin paper and box it.

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and lift to the cake.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give a tender, rich crumb.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the fruit and nuts in place.
Brandy
Adds aroma and moisture, and helps preserve the cake over time.
Almonds
Add nutty flavour and texture to the cake.
White sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender crumb when creamed with butter.

The step that matters

Creaming the butter and sugar. Beating butter and sugar together traps air in the fat, which gives the cake lift and a fine crumb. Under-creaming leaves a dense texture, while the batter must be mixed gently once flour and eggs go in.

Swap the currant

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

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

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