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Prince of Wales Cake

A two-layer spiced cake made with a dark raisin batter and a white batter, baked together and layered with icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 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 ↓

Prince of Wales Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batters

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix brown sugar, butter, sour milk, flour, raisins, dissolved baking soda, molasses, egg yolks, cloves, spice, and cinnamon to form the dark part of the cake.

  3. In another bowl, combine sugar, sweet milk, butter, egg whites, baking powder, and flour to create the white part of the cake.

Bake and finish

  1. Grease jelly tins and pour in the dark batter, followed by the white batter on top.

  2. Bake until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

  3. Let cool, then layer with icing.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  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
Egg yolks and whites add richness and structure, helping the cake set and hold its layers.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to release gas, helping the dark batter rise and become light.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the white batter, giving it lift and a lighter crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavor in both batters.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake's crumb as it bakes.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture and depth of flavor to the dark batter.

The step that matters

Pouring the two batters into the tins. The dark and white batters are layered without mixing, so pour gently and keep them separate. Because the dark batter is denser and the white one lighter, careless pouring can blend them and blur the two-tone result.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, flour, raisin, molasses, egg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, flour, raisin, molasses, egg. 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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