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Dessert

Wedding Cake— Mrs. Daniel Bradford

A large wedding cake made with flour, sugar, butter, raisins, citron, currants, molasses, brandy, eggs, spices, and baking soda.

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— Mrs. Daniel Bradford

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow 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 the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Sift together the flour, baking soda, and spices.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture, alternating with the molasses and brandy.

  5. Fold in the raisins, citron, and currants.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans.

  2. Bake slowly at first, then increase the heat as the cake rises.

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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and add richness and tender texture.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and moisture as the cake sets.
Flour
Forms the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, aerated creamed base.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter's acidity to help the cake rise and lighten.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweet flavor to the batter.

The step that matters

Bake slowly at first, then increase the heat as the cake rises. A large, dense, fruit-heavy batter needs gentle early heat so the outside does not set or brown before the center rises and cooks through. Raising the heat later finishes the bake without burning the crust.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Currantthe original
  4. Applefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, raisin, molasses, brandy, 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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