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Dessert

Wedding Cake

A rich, spiced fruit cake with coconut butter, dried fruit, almonds and eggs, baked in large molds for weddings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Wedding 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. Sift the baking powder into the flour.

  2. Cream together the coconut butter and icing sugar.

  3. Stir in the beaten yolks of the eggs.

  4. Add half of the flour, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and mace.

  5. Mix in the maple syrup or treacle.

  6. Alternately add the beaten egg whites and the remaining flour. Mix thoroughly.

  7. Combine the chopped raisins, currants, citron, almonds, dates, figs, and grape juice.

  8. Mix the fruit mixture into the batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into two large molds.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for two 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Coconut + gingertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,168 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Coconut + cinnamontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together979 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks bind the batter and whites, beaten and folded in, lighten its structure.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten that set the crumb and hold the heavy fruit.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the dense cake rise in the oven.
Coconut butter
Adds fat and richness, creaming with sugar to give a tender crumb.
Icing sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps cream the fat into a smooth base.
Raisins, currants, and figs
Add moisture, sweetness and chew throughout the dense fruitcake.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Alternating the whites with the flour should be gentle and thorough, so the trapped air is not lost and the batter stays evenly mixed around the heavy fruit.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, egg, cinnamon, ginger, clove. 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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Black 6Fruit 5Rich 4Icing 4Pudding 4Montgomery 3 See all 105 →

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