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Dessert

Prince of Wales Cake

A raisin and citron cake with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking soda, baking powder, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Prince of Wales 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 and mix the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar.

  3. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and baking soda.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, alternating with the sour milk.

  6. Fold in the raisins and citron, and add spices to taste.

Bake and assemble

  1. Divide the batter into layers and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Once cooled, frost the layers together.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown and stay soft.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help emulsify the batter so it binds and sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the leavening to lift the batter and adds tang.

The step that matters

Alternating the dry ingredients with the sour milk. Flour develops gluten when it is stirred, and overmixing after the flour goes in makes the crumb tough and dense. Adding the dry ingredients gradually and alternating with the liquid keeps the batter smooth and evenly combined with less stirring.

Swap the raisin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, milk, butter, egg. 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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