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Queen Cake

A rich cake made with flour, sugar, butter, egg yolks, brandy, wine, cream, raisins, spices, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Queen Cake

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 ↓

Queen 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

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

  2. Add the beaten yolks of the eggs, brandy, wine, cream, and part of the flour; mix well.

  3. Fold in the stoned raisins and spices.

  4. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth and gently fold them into the mixture along with the remaining flour.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake until golden.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  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 give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Egg yolks
Add richness and emulsify the batter, helping it hold together.
Egg whites
Whipped to a stiff froth, they lighten the batter and help the cake rise.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a golden browning on the crust.
Stoned raisins
Add moisture and sweetness, and fruit flavor throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites beaten to a stiff froth hold the air that lightens the cake. Folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps that air from collapsing and the batter from deflating, which would make the cake dense.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Apricotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, egg, brandy, wine, cream. 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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