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Dessert

Prince of Wales Cake

A layered cake made with sugar, butter, egg whites, corn starch, milk, flour, baking powder, brown sugar, raisins, spices, molasses, baking soda, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 the batters

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the granulated sugar and butter. Add the egg whites, corn starch, sweet milk, flour, and baking powder to the mixture. Mix well.

  3. In another bowl, combine the brown sugar, egg yolks, lard or butter, raisins, spices, and molasses.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in boiling water. Add the dissolved baking soda to the mixture.

Bake

  1. Layer the light and dark mixtures in a well-buttered cake tin.

  2. Bake until a toothpick inserted 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  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

Eggs
Egg whites and yolks add structure and richness as they set during baking.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses and heat to add lift and deepen the dark batter's color.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the light batter.
Molasses
Adds moisture, sweetness, and a dark color to the spiced batter.

The step that matters

Layer the light and dark mixtures in a well-buttered cake tin.. Both batters rise and set at different rates when baked together, so a well-buttered tin and careful layering help the cake release cleanly and keep its two distinct colors.

Swap the raisin

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

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

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