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Dessert

Bride Cake

A sweet almond cake with spices, butter, eggs, sugar, flour, brandy, sherry, and currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Bride Cake

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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 ↓

Bride Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Bruise the almonds with a little orange‑flower water.

  2. Powder the mace, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.

  3. Wash and cream the butter in a large bowl.

  4. Beat the yolks and whites of the eggs separately. Froth the whites.

Make the batter

  1. Gradually mix the sugar into the creamed butter, stirring constantly.

  2. Add the frothed egg whites and yolks.

  3. Mix in the almonds and spices.

  4. Gradually add the flour until thoroughly blended. Beat well.

  5. Gradually sprinkle in the currants.

  6. Smooth the mixture with the brandy and sherry.

Bake and finish

  1. Line a baking tin with double buttered paper and fill it three‑quarters full.

  2. Cover with paper and bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C).

  3. Cover with almond icing and allow to dry.

  4. Add sugar 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.

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.

  1. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

Eggs
Structure and lift: the whipped whites and yolks give the cake its airy, sponge-like crumb.
Butter
Fat and tenderness: creaming it with sugar traps air and gives a rich, tender texture.
Flour
Structure: its proteins set during baking to form the cake's frame.
Sugar
Sweetness and moisture: it adds sweetness and helps hold moisture in the crumb.
Sweet almonds
Texture and richness: they add fat, flavour and a tender crumb.
Brandy
Aroma and moisture: it adds a warm flavour and softens the batter.

The step that matters

Gradually add the flour until thoroughly blended. Adding flour in small portions and mixing only until blended keeps the batter smooth; overmixing develops gluten and can make the cake tough and dense.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, butter, egg, sugar. 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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