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Dessert

Queen Cakes

A buttery, sweet cake studded with currants, glace cherries, lemon zest, and flavored with nutmeg and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Queen Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA fairly hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a fairly 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).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar with a wooden spoon.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, beating until the mixture resembles a light sponge.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix the currants, glace cherries, lemon rind, and both flours.

  4. Stir the fruit mixture into the beaten eggs.

  5. Add the nutmeg, strained lemon juice, and brandy, mixing well for several minutes.

Bake and cool

  1. Butter and flour queen cake tins, filling them three-quarters full with the mixture.

  2. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until golden brown.

  3. Unmould the cakes and cool on a wire rack.

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 + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavour.
Castor sugar
Creams with the butter to aerate the batter and adds sweetness and browning.
Eggs
Beaten into the creamed mixture to add structure and help the cake rise and set.
Vienna flour
Provides the main flour structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Currants
Add fruit flavour and moisture to the crumb.

The step that matters

Beating the eggs into the creamed mixture. Adding eggs too quickly or without enough beating can cause the batter to curdle or separate. Adding them one at a time and beating well keeps the emulsion stable, so the cake bakes evenly and rises well.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, nutmeg, lemon, brandy, flour. 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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