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Dessert

A Fine Bride Cake

A rich cake made with flour, sugar, butter, eggs, currants, raisins, almonds, citrus peel, spices, and fruit syrup.

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 Fine Bride Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Cream the butter by hand until smooth, then beat in the sugar for 15 minutes.

  2. Whip the egg whites until frothy, then mix them with the butter and sugar.

  3. Beat the yolks for at least 30 minutes, then add the beaten yolks to the mixture.

  4. Gradually dust in the flour while continuously beating the batter.

  5. Add the remaining ingredients gradually.

  6. Continue beating until the batter is ready for baking.

Bake

  1. Butter a cake hoop and line the hoop with buttered paper.

  2. Pour the batter into the hoop.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for 4 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped whites add lift and air, while yolks add richness and help bind the batter.
Fresh butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Powdered sugar
Beaten with the butter, it sweetens the batter and helps create a light, aerated texture.
Fine flour
Its starch sets during baking, forming the cake's structure.
Currants
Dried fruit that adds moisture and sweetness to the finished cake.

The step that matters

Beating the yolks and dusting in the flour. Beating the yolks well and adding the flour gradually while beating keeps the batter aerated and evenly mixed. Adding flour too fast can deflate the batter and make the cake dense.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, raisin, almond, lemon, 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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