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Dessert

Twelfth Cakes

A sweet yeast cake with currants, spices, almonds, candied peel, and icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Twelfth Cakes

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.

  1. Butter a baking hoop and line it with doubled paper.

  2. Pour the batter into the baking hoop, filling it to three-quarters full, and cover the top with paper.

  3. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for four and a half hours.

  4. Turn the cake out of the hoop and ice it with plain sugar icing when nearly cold.

  5. Work the butter in a warm basin to a cream, then rub it into the flour.

  6. Mix in the currants, nutmeg, mace, cloves, caster sugar, egg yolks, and yeast.

  7. Add enough cream to moisten the mixture and sweet wine to make a light batter.

  8. Pound the blanched almonds with a little orange-flower water and wine, then mix in.

  9. Add the candied lemon peel, orange peel, and citron, and beat well together.

  10. Pour a thick layer of paste around the hoop to prevent burning.

  11. When done, cover with decorations.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 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. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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
Forms the main structure of the cake as it sets in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender crumb when worked into the flour.
Egg yolks
Enrich the batter and help bind it into a cohesive crumb.
Egg whites
Whisked separately to add lightness and help the cake rise.
Yeast
Leavens the batter so it rises and becomes lighter in texture.
Caster sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps give the crumb a soft texture.

The step that matters

Bake low and slow at 300°F (150°C) for four and a half hours. A dense, fruit-heavy batter needs long, gentle heat to cook through to the centre. Higher heat would brown and burn the outside before the middle sets.

Swap the currant

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

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

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