Skip to main content
Dessert

Bride Cake

A buttery, spiced cake studded with raisins, currants, and citron, baked slowly at 300°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Bride Cake

Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Bride 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.

Make the batter

  1. Cut the butter into pieces and let it soften.

  2. Cream the butter, then add the sugar and mix until light and fluffy.

  3. Beat the yolks of the eggs and add them to the butter and sugar mixture.

  4. Whip the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.

  5. Add the spices and flour, then fold in the fruit except for the citron.

Layer and bake

  1. Layer the citron in the batter: one inch from the bottom, one inch from the top, and one layer in between.

  2. Smooth the top of the cake with a spoonful of water.

  3. Bake for 3 to 4 hours at 300°F (150°C).

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites trapped as foam lighten the batter and help set the rich crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and tender texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the heavy fruit and batter together as it bakes.
Sugar
Creamed with butter, it helps create a light texture and adds sweetness.
Raisins
Add moisture, chewiness and sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Bake for 3 to 4 hours at 300°F (150°C). A long, low bake lets the dense, fruit-heavy batter cook through evenly without the outside browning or burning before the center sets.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

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

More bride cake recipes

Rich 5Icing 4 See all 42 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipes