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Wedding Cake

A large sweet cake made with flour, butter, currants, sugar, spices, eggs, almonds, candied citrus, wine, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Wedding Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then set aside.

  2. In another bowl, beat the egg yolks with the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Gradually add the flour, currants, grated nutmeg, mixed spices, chopped almonds, candied citron, and candied orange to the butter mixture.

  4. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently until combined.

  5. Stir in the wine and brandy until well mixed.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake for 6 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. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  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. Nutmeg + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites whipped to stiff peaks lighten the batter, and yolks add richness and structure when set by baking.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich crumb.
All-purpose flour
Its proteins set during baking, forming the cake's main structure.
Granulated sugar
Creams with the butter to trap air and adds sweetness and browning.
Currants
Add chewy pockets of fruit sweetness throughout the cake.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor while helping the cake keep its moisture.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only while stiff. Folding them in gently, rather than stirring, keeps the batter light so the cake rises evenly instead of collapsing or turning dense.

Swap the currant

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

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

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