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Dessert

Florida Cake

A lemon cake made with flour, brown sugar, butter, sour milk, eggs, nutmegs, mace, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Gibson, Marietta Fauntleroy Hollyday, "Mrs. C. H. Gibson." · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Florida Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grate the rind and juice of one lemon.

  2. Combine the grated rind, lemon juice, one pound flour, one pound best brown sugar, half pound butter, one teacup of sour milk or cream, five eggs beaten light, two small nutmegs, and one teaspoonful pounded mace.

Mix and bake

  1. Mix as you would pound cake, reserving half of the milk for the last, to which add one teaspoonful of soda.

  2. Grease the tins and pour the batter in.

  3. Use slow heat at first.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

915Calories
28 gProtein
27 gFat
140 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 9 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Sour Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Molasses1 tbsp (20g)58
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Gibson, Marietta Fauntleroy Hollyday, "Mrs. C. H. Gibson.". 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. See the original page.

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. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and butter 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

Eggs
Beaten eggs add structure and lift to the batter as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender crumb by carrying fat through the batter.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas that lightens the cake.

The step that matters

Use slow heat at first. Starting with gentle heat lets the batter rise evenly before the crust sets. A hot oven at the start can set the outside too fast, leaving the centre heavy or cracked.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, molasses, lemon, milk, egg. 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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