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Twelfth Cake

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Twelfth Cake

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.

Prepare the batter

  1. In a warm place, cream the butter until smooth.

  2. Mix the creamed butter with the sugar and spices in a bowl.

  3. Gradually add the eggs, beating for at least 20 minutes.

  4. Stir in the brandy.

  5. Add the flour and mix lightly.

  6. Fold in the currants, sweetmeats, and almonds.

Bake

  1. Prepare a hoop lined with paper on a baking plate.

  2. Pour the mixture into the hoop.

  3. Smooth the top with a hand dipped in milk.

  4. Place the baking plate on another plate with sawdust in between to prevent burning.

  5. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for four hours or more.

Finish

  1. Once nearly cold, ice the cake.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Beaten in gradually, they add structure and lift to the batter.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the heavy fruit and batter together as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the creamed butter hold air during beating.
Currants
Add chewy fruit pieces and sweetness throughout the cake.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour to the batter.

The step that matters

Bake in a slow oven for four hours or more. A low, long bake lets the dense, fruit-heavy batter set through to the centre without the outside browning or burning. The sawdust-cushioned plate also shields the base from direct heat.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, egg, almond, orange, lemon. 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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