Skip to main content
Dessert

One Egg Spice Cake

A spiced cake made with raisins, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and a single egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

One Egg Spice Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the egg and mix well.

  4. Stir in the sour milk and baking soda until combined.

  5. Gradually add the flour, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and raisins, mixing until smooth.

  6. Pour the batter into a pan about 4 inches deep.

Bake and frost

  1. Bake for about 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. For the frosting, squeeze the juice from the lemon and strain it.

  3. Gradually add the confectioner's sugar while beating until creamy.

  4. Spread the frosting on the cooled cake.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Butter
Creams with sugar to give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as the cake sets.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda so the cake rises and stays tender.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in sour milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake and raisins together.
Raisins
Add moisture and chewy sweetness throughout the crumb.

The step that matters

Stir in the sour milk and baking soda until combined. Baking soda needs an acid, such as sour milk, to release carbon dioxide. Mixing it in promptly and gently keeps the gas in the batter so the cake rises evenly rather than flat or coarse.

Swap the clove

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

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

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

You might also like

Coffee Ice CreamCoffee Ice Cream91 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesClove CakeClove Cake53 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipes