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Dessert

Plain Cake

A simple cake with raisins, cinnamon, cloves, sour milk, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Plain Cake

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Plain Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  3. Add the well-beaten eggs and mix well.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in 2 teaspoons of cold water and stir it into the sour milk.

  5. Combine the butter mixture with the sour milk mixture.

  6. Gradually add the spices and flour, mixing until smooth.

  7. Chop the raisins and fold them into the batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a loaf pan and bake for 45 minutes.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown while tenderizing the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk's acidity to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tang.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in the sour milk. Baking soda needs an acid to react and release carbon dioxide. Mixing it into the acidic sour milk, rather than dry into the flour, lets the gas form in the batter and lift the cake. Stir it in before the batter sits, so the bubbles are not lost.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

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