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Dessert

Tipsy Cake

A layered sponge cake soaked in sherry and custard, topped with raspberry jam and garnished with cherries, angelica, pistachios, or almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pistachio and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 693 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Tipsy Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cakes

  1. Split the sponge cakes and spread a good layer of raspberry jam on each half.

  2. Replace the halves and arrange them compactly in a dish to resemble one large cake.

  3. Pour the sherry over the cakes and let them soak for 1 hour.

Add custard and garnish

  1. Prepare the boiled custard as directed and let it cool.

  2. Pour the cooled custard over the soaked cakes.

  3. Garnish with cherries, angelica, chopped pistachios, or baked almonds as desired.

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. Pistachio + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together693 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Angelica + pistachiotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together36 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Angelica + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Raspberry + almondtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together552 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Raspberry + pistachiotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together62 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Sponge cakes
Form the soft base that soaks up the sherry and holds the layers together.
Raspberry jam
Adds sweetness and fruity flavour between the cake layers.
Boiled custard
Adds richness and a creamy, moist topping over the soaked cake.
Sherry
Moistens the sponge and adds a deep, aromatic flavour.

The step that matters

Soaking the cakes in sherry. Sherry must soak in fully so the sponge absorbs it evenly. Dry patches stay bland, while overly wet cake turns soggy and collapses under the custard.

Swap the angelica

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raspberry, sherry, pistachio, almond):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Angelicathe original
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against raspberry, sherry, pistachio, almond. 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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