Name: Plum-cake or Weddinq-cake
Ingredients: 2 lbs all-purpose flour; 1½ lbs sifted sugar; 1½ lbs unsalted butter; 1 lb chopped dried cherries; 1 lb cleaned currants; 1½ lbs mixed shredded orange, lemon, and green citron peels; 12 large eggs; ½ cup brandy; ⅓ cup caramel or burnt sugar coloring; 1 oz coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); 8 oz ground almonds; Zest of 4 oranges; 1 oz ground cinnamon; 1 oz ground cloves; 1 oz ground nutmeg; 1 oz ground coriander seeds

Why it works: Orange and lemon 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 ↓

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.

Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Currant + orangetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,034 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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: Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Eggs: Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
All-purpose flour: Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps tenderize the crumb while creaming with butter.
Dried cherries: Add chewy texture and concentrated fruit sweetness throughout the cake.
Currants: Add chewy texture and concentrated fruit sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Holding the oven temperature steady. A long bake of about 2.5 hours needs a steady heat. Raising the temperature can brown the outside before the dense, fruit-filled center sets, leaving it underbaked inside.

Swap the currant

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

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Blackberryfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, orange, lemon, egg, brandy. 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.

Plum-cake or Weddinq-cake