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Dessert

Wedding Cake

A sweet loaf cake made with butter, sugar, flour, eggs, raisins, currants, citron, currant wine, and various extracts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

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.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the butter and sugar.

  2. Add the beaten yolks and beaten whites of the eggs, mixing well.

  3. Gradually incorporate the flour and fruits.

  4. Mix in the currant wine and all the extracts.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into two loaf pans.

  2. Bake 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Almond + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,605 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light texture when creamed with butter.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake and fruit together as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Raisins
Add moisture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.
Currants
Add moisture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Mix in the currant wine and all the extracts. Liquid and strong flavourings added to a creamed batter can cause it to separate or turn dense if not blended evenly. Mixing gently until uniform keeps the crumb consistent and the flavours spread through the cake.

Swap the currant

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

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

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