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Dessert

Wedding Cake

A large, spiced cake with raisins, currants, and citron, baked for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Prepare ingredients a day or two in advance.

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

  3. Line the baking pans with paper and butter the pans well.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter by hand.

  2. Beat in the sugar.

  3. Add the beaten yolks of the eggs.

  4. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

  5. Mix the flour, spices, and fruit together.

  6. Gradually add the dry mixture to the butter mixture.

  7. Stir in the brandy last.

Bake

  1. Bake for 5 to 6 hours, preferably in two or three loaves.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites lighten it and add structure.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten that set the crumb and give the cake its structure.
Unsalted butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender texture and rich flavor.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the batter and, creamed with butter, helps create a fine, tender crumb.
Raisins
Add moisture, chewiness and sweetness throughout the cake.
Currants
Add moisture, tartness and chewy fruit pieces throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whites hold air only if they are beaten properly and folded in gently. Stirring them vigorously deflates the foam, leaving a denser cake with less lift.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

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