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Dessert

Honey Cake

A sweet cake made with honey, molasses, oil, water, eggs, flour, and anise spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Honey Cake

Why it works: Flour and anise work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 270 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Honey 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. In a large bowl, combine honey, oil, molasses, and water.

  2. Add the eggs and mix well.

  3. Gradually incorporate the flour until a smooth batter forms.

  4. Flavor the batter with anise and spices to your preference.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick comes out clean.

  3. Once cooled, frost with a thin layer of egg white frosting.

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. Flour + anisetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together270 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Honey + anisetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41 recipes

    Shared aroma: pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Honey + molassestop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together224 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Honey
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake stay soft.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness, dark colour and a moist, dense crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and help bind the batter as it sets in the oven.
Flour
Forms the gluten and starch structure that holds the cake together.
Oil
Adds fat for tenderness and moisture in the crumb.

Swap the anise

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (honey, molasses, egg, flour):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Jalapenofits better
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Anisethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against honey, molasses, egg, flour. 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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