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Dessert

A Rich Wedding Cake

A dense, spiced cake with currants, raisins, and citron, baked slowly at 300°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

A Rich Wedding Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fruit

  1. Wash and clean the currants a day before.

  2. Dry them by rubbing with a coarse napkin and spread on a dish to dry.

  3. Stone the raisins and cut them in halves.

  4. Sprinkle the currants and raisins with flour.

  5. If using brown sugar, dry and roll it; if white sugar, crush and sift it.

  6. Sift the flour.

  7. Mix the brandy and rose water in a cup, adding the pounded spices.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Beat the eggs until very light and stir them into the butter and sugar mixture.

  3. Gradually add part of the flour, then stir in the spices and liquor mixture.

  4. Add the remaining flour and the currants and raisins alternately, stirring for a few minutes.

Bake

  1. Butter a large tin pan and line the bottom and sides with buttered white paper.

  2. Layer the cake mixture in the pan, adding strips of citron between layers until all is used.

  3. Bake for 4 to 5 hours at 300°F (150°C).

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. Brandy + curranttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Currant + macetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,791 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

Eggs
Beaten eggs trap air and add structure and lift to the rich batter.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich crumb.
All-purpose flour
Its proteins set during baking to form the cake's structure around the fruit.
Granulated sugar
Creamed with butter for aeration, and adds sweetness and gentle browning.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness, chew and moisture to the cake.
Currants
Add tart, concentrated fruit flavour and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Beating the eggs and creaming the butter and sugar. Creaming and beating trap air that expands in the oven and lifts the heavy batter. Under-beating leaves a dense cake, and adding the flour too quickly can deflate the mixture.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, egg, brandy, currant, raisin. 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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