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Dessert

Layer Cake

A sweet cake with layers of batter, cinnamon, cloves, and raisins baked in a pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Layer 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 ↓

Layer 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. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the sweet milk and egg whites, mixing well.

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, beating thoroughly.

  6. Stir in the vanilla extract.

Divide and bake

  1. Pour half of the batter into a layer cake pan.

  2. For the second layer, mix the remaining batter with cinnamon, cloves, and raisins.

  3. Pour this mixture into another layer cake pan.

  4. Bake both layers for about 40 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. Vanilla + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  3. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Vanilla + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Egg whites
Add structure and lift as they set in the oven, supporting the crumb.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure once it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the layers rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps create a light texture.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, beating thoroughly. Adding flour in portions and mixing well builds gluten evenly and keeps the batter smooth, so the layers bake evenly. Overmixing after the flour is added can make the cake tough.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, egg, flour, vanilla, cinnamon. 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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Chocolate 44White 23Fruit 18Orange 16Fig 12Coconut 11 See all 133 →

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