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Dessert

Queen Cakes

A sweet cake made with sugar, flour, butter, eggs, currants, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat and sift the sugar.

  3. Cream the butter and mix in the sugar.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg whites for about 30 minutes and combine with the sugar and butter.

  2. Beat the yolks for about 30 minutes and add to the mixture.

  3. Mix well, then add the flour, spices, and currants.

Bake

  1. Sift a little sugar over the mixture and bake in tins.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites and yolks are beaten separately to trap air and add structure and richness to the cake.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to hold air bubbles and give the cake its tender, rich texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps build a light, aerated batter.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Currants
Add fruit sweetness and chewy pockets throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites and yolks. Beating the whites and yolks for long periods incorporates air, which leavens the batter. Under-beaten eggs leave the cake dense, while the flour must be folded in gently afterward so the air is not knocked out.

Swap the currant

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

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

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