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Dessert

Cheap Family Cake

A molasses cake made with butter, egg, allspice, pepper, baking soda, milk, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cheap Family 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. Beat the egg and butter together until well combined.

  2. Add allspice, pepper, molasses, and baking soda dissolved in cream or milk.

  3. Mix in enough flour to achieve the consistency of fritters.

Rise and bake

  1. Set the mixture in a warm place to rise until light.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

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. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Allspice + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Allspice + molassestop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,508 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich texture in the crumb.
Molasses
Provides sweetness, dark color, and a deep flavor to the cake.
Baking soda (salaratus)
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and carries the baking soda evenly through the batter.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the batter as it bakes.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda before adding it. Baking soda must be fully dissolved in the cream or milk so it mixes evenly into the molasses batter. Unevenly distributed soda can leave pockets that rise unevenly or taste bitter.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, pepper, molasses, cream, 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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