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Dessert

Wedding Cake

A large sweet cake with currants, sultanas, mixed peel, almonds, lemon rind, nutmeg, mixed spice, and brandy, finished with almond and royal icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Wedding Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately cool oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Clean the fruit and grate the nutmeg.

  2. Prepare a large cake tin lined with brown paper, using at least 3 layers for the bottom.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until very light and smooth.

  2. Add the salt and work in the eggs one at a time.

  3. Gradually mix in the flour and then the remaining ingredients, beating in a little at a time. Ensure the mixture is thoroughly combined.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour in the mixture and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 5 hours.

  2. Once done, let the cake stand for 1 or more days.

  3. Cover with almond icing and coat with royal and transparent icing.

  4. Pipe the cake with royal icing 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. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the cake sets.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as the batter sets in the oven.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, creamed texture.
Currants
Add fruit bulk, sweetness and moisture to the dense cake.
Sultanas
Add fruit bulk, sweetness and moisture to the dense cake.
Blanched sweet almonds
Add texture and richness to the cake's crumb.

The step that matters

Thoroughly combining the mixture. Gradually adding the flour and remaining ingredients a little at a time keeps the batter smooth and evenly emulsified. Unevenly combined batter can bake unevenly and leave pockets of dry flour or fruit.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, egg, almond, lemon, nutmeg, 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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