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Dessert

Bride-cake

A rich cake made with butter, eggs, flour, sugar, spices, currants, almonds, sweetmeats, wine, brandy, raisins, and orange‑flower water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Bride-cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the butter and eggs

  1. Wash the butter in plain water.

  2. Wash the butter in rose-water.

  3. Beat the butter to a cream.

  4. Beat the egg yolks separately for one hour.

  5. Beat the egg whites separately for one hour.

  6. Keep the flour, sugar, and dry ingredients warm by the fire.

  7. Mix all the dry ingredients together.

  8. Strain the eggs into the butter.

  9. Beat the egg whites to a strong froth.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the sweet wine and brandy.

  2. Pour the wine and brandy into the butter and eggs.

  3. Mix the mixture well.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients, beating thoroughly.

  5. Carefully mix in the chopped raisins.

  6. Add the orange-flower water.

  7. Beat the mixture together for at least one hour.

Bake

  1. Prepare a well-buttered hoop and line it with buttered paper.

  2. Fill the hoop with batter up to three-quarters full to allow for rising.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 3 hours.

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  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

Eggs
Provide structure and lift, with whipped whites adding airiness to the rich batter.
Butter
Creamed to hold air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps it cream and brown in the oven.
Currants
Add fruitiness and chew, dispersed through the batter.
Sweet wine and brandy
Add moisture and aroma, with alcohol adding flavor depth to the cake.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to a strong froth. Whipped egg whites trap air that expands in the oven and lightens the heavy batter. Under-beaten whites collapse, leaving a dense cake, while the long beating of the batter develops structure.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, flour, sugar, almond, wine, 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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