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Dessert

Wedding Cake, No. 2

A rich, spiced wedding cake with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, currants, raisins, citron, lemon peel, almonds, brandy, and spices.

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 ↓

Wedding Cake, No. 2

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the batter

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

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

  4. Gradually fold in the flour, then add the currants, sultana raisins, citron, candied lemon peel, and almonds.

  5. Stir in the brandy and spices until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and smooth the top.

  2. Bake for about 6 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. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Currant + raisintop 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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, fluffy creamed base.
Currants
Add moisture and concentrated fruit sweetness throughout the crumb.

The step that matters

Long, low baking. Baking at 300°F for about 6 hours lets the heavy, fruit-filled batter cook through evenly. Too high a heat can brown or set the outside before the center is done, so check with a skewer before removing the cake.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, flour, raisin, lemon, almond. 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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Black 6Fruit 5Rich 4Icing 4Pudding 4Montgomery 3 See all 105 →

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