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Dessert

Twelfth Cake

A large sweet cake with currants, almonds, candied peel, spices, and brandy, baked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Twelfth Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. In a warm place, cream the butter until smooth.

  2. Mix in the sugar and spices thoroughly.

  3. Gradually add the eggs, beating for at least 20 minutes.

  4. Stir in the brandy, then add the flour and mix lightly.

  5. Fold in the currants, sweetmeats, and almonds.

Prepare and bake

  1. Prepare a hoop lined with paper on a baking plate.

  2. Pour the mixture into the hoop and smooth the top with a hand dipped in milk.

  3. Place the baking plate on another plate with sawdust in between to prevent burning.

  4. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for four hours or more.

Finish

  1. Once nearly cool, ice the cake.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten in to aerate and bind the batter, giving the cake its structure.
Butter
Creamed to hold air and add richness and a tender crumb.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure once mixed in lightly.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the batter brown during the long bake.
Currants
Provide fruit sweetness and chewy texture throughout the cake.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour to the batter.

The step that matters

Beating the eggs in gradually. Adding eggs slowly and beating well keeps the emulsified batter from splitting and traps air that helps the cake rise. Beating for the full time builds that structure before the flour goes in.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, egg, almond, orange, lemon. 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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