Why it works: Currant and rose work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 494 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓
Queen Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, and currants.
Make the batter
In another bowl, beat the butter until smooth, then mix in the egg yolks.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then fold them into the butter mixture.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter and egg mixture, mixing until combined.
Bake
Butter small tins, tea cups, or saucers and fill them halfway with the batter.
Sift a little fine sugar over the batter before placing it in the oven.
Bake for 1 hour or until golden brown.
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.
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Currant + rosetop 11% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together494 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Currant + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,856 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Egg whites whipped to stiff peaks lighten the batter and give it an airy structure.
- Butter
- Creamed until smooth, it adds richness and a tender crumb.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps it brown as it bakes.
- Currants
- Add small pockets of fruit flavour and sweetness throughout the cake.
The step that matters
Folding the egg whites into the butter mixture. Whipped egg whites hold air that leavens the batter. Stirring them vigorously deflates that air and makes the cake dense, so fold gently with a spatula until just combined.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, rose, egg):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Lemonfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, rose, egg. 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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