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Dessert

Queen Cakes

A spiced currant cake baked at 300°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Queen Cakes

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. Cream the butter until smooth.

  2. Add the sugar and mix well.

  3. Beat the egg whites for about 30 minutes.

  4. Combine the egg whites with the sugar and butter mixture.

  5. Beat the egg yolks for about 30 minutes.

  6. Add the egg yolks to the mixture and mix thoroughly.

  7. Incorporate the flour, spices, and currants into the batter.

Bake

  1. Preheat your oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Sift a little sugar over the mixture.

  3. Pour the batter into tins.

  4. Bake in the oven until golden.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped egg whites and yolks provide structure and lift, leaving the cake light and airy.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown during baking.
Currants
Add pockets of fruit sweetness and moisture through the batter.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites and yolks. Whites and yolks are beaten separately and folded in so air is trapped in the batter. Under-beaten eggs yield a dense cake, while over-beaten whites can collapse and lose their lift.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, butter, egg, nutmeg, mace, cinnamon. 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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