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Dessert

Victoria Cakes

A baked cake of butter, sugar, eggs, Brazil nuts, ground rice, brandy, topped with glace cherries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Brazil nut and rice work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20 recipes. Both carry trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Victoria Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate 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. In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar using a wooden spoon.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

  4. Blanch the Brazil nuts, then pound them with the ground rice until fine.

  5. Stir the nut and rice mixture into the creamed butter and sugar.

  6. Add the brandy and mix everything well.

Bake

  1. Butter small round tins and fill each with the mixture.

  2. Place a glace cherry in the center of each cake.

  3. Sprinkle with sugar and bake for 40 minutes.

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. Brazil nut + ricetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for a lighter crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cakes and helps cream the butter, adding aeration and browning.
Brazil nuts
Provide body, flavor and moisture to the crumb once ground into the batter.
Ground rice
Adds a fine, tender texture to the crumb alongside the ground nuts.

The step that matters

Creaming the butter and sugar. Beating butter and sugar together traps air in the fat, which gives the cakes lift and a light texture. Under-creamed butter leads to a dense, heavy crumb.

Swap the brazil nut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, rice, sugar, brandy):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Pecansfits better
  4. Brazil nutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, rice, sugar, brandy. 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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