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Dessert

A Fene 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 Fene 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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter by hand until smooth.

  2. Beat in the sugar for 15 minutes.

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

  4. Beat the yolks for at least 30 minutes and add them to the mixture.

  5. Gradually dust in the flour while beating the mixture continuously.

  6. Add the remaining ingredients gradually while continuing to beat.

Prepare the hoop

  1. Prepare a cake hoop by buttering it and lining it with buttered paper.

Bake

  1. 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

Fine flour
Builds the cake's structure as its starch sets during baking.
Eggs
Whipped whites lighten the batter and yolks add richness and binding.
Fresh butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives a tender, rich crumb.
Pounded sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a soft, even texture when beaten in.
Currants
Add fruit sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Gradually dust in the flour while beating. Adding flour slowly while beating keeps the batter smooth and evenly blended, preventing lumps and streaks. Overworking flour once it is in can toughen the crumb, so beat steadily but not longer than needed.

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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