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Dessert

Twelfth-cake

A rich cake made with flour, sugar, butter, currants, almonds, candied fruits, spices, eggs, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange 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 cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream the butter until smooth.

  3. Gradually mix in the sugar and spices until well combined.

  4. Add the eggs six at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix for at least 20 minutes after the last egg.

  5. Stir in the brandy, then gently fold in the flour until just combined.

  6. Add the currants, almonds, and candied fruits, mixing lightly.

Bake and finish

  1. Butter a cake tin and line it with buttered paper.

  2. Pour the mixture into the tin, filling it three-quarters full.

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

  4. To prevent burning, place a baking plate in the oven with sawdust underneath the cake tin.

  5. Bake for 4 hours in a cool oven.

  6. Once nearly cool, ice and decorate as desired.

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. Lemon + orangetop 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 to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Beaten in gradually to bind the batter and add structure and richness.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dense batter together as it bakes.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a soft texture when creamed with butter.
Currants
Add moisture and sweetness throughout the cake as dried fruit.

The step that matters

Mixing the eggs in gradually. Adding eggs too fast can cause the batter to curdle or separate. Adding them six at a time and beating well after each addition keeps the emulsion stable so the cake bakes evenly.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, egg, 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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