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Dessert

Spanish Cake

A butter and sugar cake with cinnamon, baked in layers and topped with caramel frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

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

  2. Cream the melted butter and sugar together.

  3. Add the egg yolks and beat until light in color.

  4. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and cinnamon.

  5. Add the dry ingredients alternately with the milk to the butter mixture.

Bake and make the frosting

  1. Bake in layers until golden brown.

  2. For the caramel frosting, cook 1½ cups brown sugar and ¾ cup thin cream with 1 teaspoon butter until a ball forms in cold water.

  3. Beat the frosting until ready to spread.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Egg yolks
Add richness and help set the crumb as the batter bakes.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake's crumb together.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, making the cake rise and turn light.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and a richer flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown during baking.
Milk
Supplies moisture that hydrates the flour and keeps the crumb soft.

The step that matters

Adding the dry ingredients alternately with the milk. Adding the flour mixture in portions alternated with the liquid keeps the batter smooth and well combined. Mixing in one large addition risks overworking the flour, which toughens the cake.

“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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