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Dessert

Queen Cakes

A small, spiced cake with currants and almonds, topped with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Queen Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 375°F (190°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 375°F (190°C).

  2. Beat the butter to a cream in a mixing bowl.

  3. Gradually add the sugar to the butter and mix well.

  4. Incorporate the eggs one at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition.

  5. Add the flour, currants, nutmeg, cinnamon, and bitter almonds; mix until well combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Spoon the mixture into small buttered tins, filling them nearly to the top.

  2. Sprinkle finely-pounded loaf sugar over the tops.

  3. Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.

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. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and lift as they set in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, creamed texture and golden browning.
Currants
Add fruity sweetness and chewy pockets throughout the crumb.

The step that matters

Creaming the butter and sugar. Beating butter and sugar together until light traps air bubbles that help the cake rise. Under-creaming leaves a dense texture, while adding eggs too fast can cause the batter to curdle.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, egg, nutmeg, cinnamon, 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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