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Dessert

Wedding Cake

A large cake made with butter, sugar, flour, eggs, currants, sultanas, mixed peel, almonds, lemon rind, spices, brandy, and icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Wedding Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Clean the fruit and grate the nutmeg.

  2. Prepare a large cake tin lined with brown paper, using at least 3 rounds for the bottom.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until very light and smooth.

  2. Add the salt and work in the eggs one at a time.

  3. Gradually mix in the flour, then add the remaining ingredients a little at a time. Ensure the mixture is thoroughly combined.

Bake and rest

  1. Pour in the mixture and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 5 hours.

  2. Once done, let it stand for 1 or more days.

Ice and decorate

  1. Cover with almond icing and coat with royal and transparent icing.

  2. Pipe the cake with royal icing as desired.

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. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavour.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the cake sets in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Sugar
Creams with the butter to aerate the batter and adds sweetness and browning.
Currants
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the dense fruit cake.
Sultanas
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the dense fruit cake.

The step that matters

Creaming the butter and sugar. Beating until very light and smooth traps air in the fat, which helps the heavy batter rise and keeps the crumb tender. Under-creamed butter leaves a dense, heavy cake.

Swap the currant

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

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

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