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Dessert

Wedding Cake

A large sweet cake made with currants, raisins, candied peel, almonds, spices, sugar, butter, eggs, flour, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Wedding Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the fruit and nuts

  1. Wash, pick, and dry the currants.

  2. Stone and cut the raisins.

  3. Place the raisins in an enamelled pan.

  4. Cut the candied peel into slices and stir it into the fruit.

  5. Blanch the almonds and cut them into strips.

  6. Grate the nutmegs.

  7. Pound the spices.

Make the batter

  1. Add the grated nutmegs and powdered spices to the other ingredients.

  2. Stir well.

  3. Add the sugar and lemon rind.

  4. Mix thoroughly.

  5. Beat the butter to a cream.

  6. Add the creamed butter to the fruit mixture with a pinch of salt.

  7. Stir the mixture for at least 30 minutes with a wooden spoon.

  8. Beat the eggs, yolks, and whites separately.

  9. Mix them into the mixture gradually.

  10. Pour the brandy into the mixture.

  11. Add the flour.

Bake and store

  1. Butter a tin well.

  2. Line the tin with buttered paper.

  3. Place three sheets of buttered paper at the bottom to prevent burning.

  4. Pour the mixture into the tin.

  5. Cover the top with a sheet of paper.

  6. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 4 to 5 hours.

  7. Leave the cake in the tin until the next day.

  8. Store the cake in a dry place.

  9. Do not eat the cake for 3 to 4 weeks after making.

  10. One week before serving, apply the almond paste and icing.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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 as the cake bakes.
Fresh butter
Creamed with the sugar, it adds richness and a tender crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the heavy fruit and batter together.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep it moist during long storage.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.
Currants
Add tart fruit flavour and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Stirring the mixture for at least 30 minutes. Long, thorough stirring evenly distributes the creamed butter, eggs, and fruit so the batter bakes uniformly rather than separating or leaving dense pockets.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, orange, lemon, almond, nutmeg, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Cranberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, orange, lemon, almond, nutmeg, clove, 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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