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Dessert

Bride-cake

A rich cake made with butter, eggs, flour, sugar, spices, currants, almonds, sweetmeats, raisins, wine, brandy, and orange‑flower water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Bride-cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the ingredients

  1. Wash the butter in plain water and then in rose‑water.

  2. Beat it to a cream.

  3. Beat the egg yolks separately for ½ hour.

  4. Beat the egg whites separately for ½ hour.

  5. Keep the flour and sugar warm.

  6. Mix the dry ingredients together.

Make the batter

  1. Strain the eggs into the butter.

  2. Beat the egg whites to a strong froth.

  3. Mix the sweet wine and brandy into the butter and eggs.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients.

  5. Beat the mixture thoroughly for at least 1 hour.

  6. Carefully mix in the chopped raisins.

  7. Add the orange‑flower water.

Bake and finish

  1. Butter a hoop.

  2. Line it with buttered white paper.

  3. Fill it ¾ full with batter.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 3 hours.

  5. Cover the cake with icing once cooled.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

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

  4. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Fresh butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Provide structure and lift; whipped whites help the cake rise and set.
Finest flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps tenderise the crumb while creaming with butter.
Currants
Add chewy pockets of fruit and moisture throughout the cake.
Blanched almonds
Add richness, texture and a nutty flavour to the crumb.

The step that matters

Beat the mixture thoroughly for at least 1 hour. Long beating incorporates air and develops an even, fine crumb; whipped egg whites and creamed butter must be combined gently enough to keep that air in the batter.

Swap the currant

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

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

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