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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 for one hour.

  5. Beat the egg whites for one hour.

  6. Strain the eggs into the butter.

  7. Beat the egg whites to a strong froth.

Make the batter

  1. Mix all the dry ingredients together.

  2. Keep the dry mixture warm.

  3. Mix the sweet wine and brandy.

  4. Add the wine and brandy to the butter and eggs.

  5. Mix the mixture well.

  6. Gradually add the dry ingredients.

  7. Beat the batter thoroughly.

  8. Mix in the chopped raisins.

  9. Add the orange-flower water.

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

Bake

  1. Prepare a well-buttered hoop.

  2. Line the hoop with buttered white paper.

  3. Fill the hoop with batter up to three-quarters full.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for three 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
Whipped yolks and whites give the cake its lift and light, open crumb.
Fresh butter
Creamed butter gives the cake its rich texture and tender crumb.
All-purpose flour
Flour forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Powdered sugar
Sugar sweetens the batter and helps it brown during baking.
Currants
Dried fruit adds moisture, sweetness and chewy texture throughout the cake.
Sweet wine and brandy
Liquids add moisture and aroma, and alcohol adds flavour depth to the batter.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to a strong froth. Whites trapped with air provide much of the lift in a cake this dense. Under-beaten whites leave the cake heavy, and over-beaten whites become dry and grainy before folding.

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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