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Dessert

Spice Cake

A baked loaf made with butter, flour, brown sugar, spices, sour milk, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Spice 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 ↓

Spice 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare and mix

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

  2. Cream the butter and brown sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, and grated nutmeg.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, alternating with the sour milk.

Fold and bake

  1. In a clean bowl, beat the egg white until stiff peaks form, then fold it into the batter.

  2. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan and bake for about 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick 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.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  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 main structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture by coating flour and trapping air when creamed.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the crumb stay soft.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in sour milk to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
Sour milk
Supplies moisture and acidity that activates the baking soda for lift.
Egg white
Whipped to stiff peaks and folded in, it traps air that lightens the batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg white. Whipped egg white holds air that gives the cake lift. Folding gently keeps that air in the batter, while stirring vigorously would deflate it and leave a denser cake.

Swap the clove

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

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

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