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Dessert

To Make a Bride Cake

A rich cake made with flour, sugar, butter, eggs, spices, currants, raisins, almonds, candied fruit, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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To Make a Bride Cake

Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

To Make a Bride 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

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

  2. In a bowl, cream the butter with your hands until smooth.

Make the batter

  1. Gradually add the flour while mixing in the egg whites until well combined.

  2. Stir in the mace, nutmeg, currants, and raisins.

  3. Beat the yolks for half an hour, then add to the mixture along with the almonds and brandy.

Layer and bake

  1. Layer one-third of the batter in a prepared cake pan, followed by a layer of candied fruit and almonds.

  2. Repeat the layering process two more times, finishing with the batter on top.

  3. Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Rose + curranttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together494 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mace + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,791 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the heavy fruit and nuts in the cake.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender crumb through fat that coats the flour.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure, with the whipped yolks adding lift and richness.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps give a fine, tender crumb.
Almonds
Add crunch and nutty texture throughout the layers.
Brandy
Adds aroma and warm flavor to the dense fruit batter.

The step that matters

Bake until a toothpick comes out clean. This batter is dense with fruit and nuts, so the centre sets slowly. Baking fully until a tester comes out clean confirms the protein and starch have set, and avoids a gummy middle.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, rose, egg, nutmeg, currant. 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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