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Dessert

Rich Plum Cake, or Wedding Cake

A rich plum cake with butter, sugar, eggs, citrus peel, almonds, raisins, currants, spices, and brandy, wine, rose water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Rich Plum Cake, or Wedding 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.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the eggs, mixing well after each addition, and then incorporate the reserved egg whites.

  3. Stir in the diced citron, orange, and lemon peel.

  4. In a separate bowl, mix the powdered almonds with an equal amount of sugar.

  5. Heat the almond mixture in an iron pot over low heat, stirring constantly until dry.

  6. Combine the dry almond mixture with the creamed mixture, then fold in the minced raisins, whole raisins, currants, and mixed spice.

  7. Add the brandy, white wine, and rose water, mixing until well combined.

Bake

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

  2. Pour the batter into a well‑buttered and papered pan, and sift flour on top.

  3. Bake for 4 hours or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Almond + raisintop 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. Orange + almondtop 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the cake sets in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for a lighter crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten network that gives the cake its structure.
Almonds
Add nutty flavor and body; toasting the powdered almonds dries them and deepens their aroma.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps give a tender, airy crumb.
Raisins
Add moisture and chewy sweetness throughout the fruitcake.

The step that matters

Drying the almond mixture over low heat. Stirring constantly over low heat dries the powdered almonds without scorching them. Scorched almonds turn bitter, and moisture left in them can make the dense batter heavy and gummy.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Orangethe original
  4. Coconutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, egg, lemon, almond, raisin. 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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