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Dessert

A Fine Bride Cake

A rich fruit cake made with flour, sugar, butter, eggs, currants, raisins, almonds, citrus peel, mace, nutmeg, and fruit syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

A Fine Bride Cake

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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter in a large bowl using your hands.

  2. Gradually beat in the sugar for 15 minutes.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until frothy.

  4. Mix the frothy egg whites into the butter and sugar mixture.

  5. Beat the egg yolks for at least 30 minutes, then add them to the mixture.

  6. Gradually dust in the flour while continuously beating the batter.

  7. Add the remaining ingredients gradually, continuing to beat until combined.

Bake

  1. Prepare a cake pan by buttering it and lining it with buttered paper.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 4 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 + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  3. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it sets.
Unsalted butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich texture.
Eggs
Whites trap air for lift, while yolks add richness, moisture and structure.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the creamed butter hold air for a finer texture.
Currants
Add moisture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.
Raisins
Add moisture and chewy sweetness distributed through the crumb.

The step that matters

Gradually dusting in the flour while beating. Adding flour slowly and mixing only until combined keeps the batter smooth. Overmixing once flour is in develops gluten, which makes the cake dense and tough.

Swap the currant

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

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

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