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Dessert

Dough Cake

A sweet cake made from bread dough, sugar, egg, and spices, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Dough 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine bread dough, sugar, and egg.

  2. Mix in shortening and sour milk until well blended.

  3. Add cinnamon, allspice, cloves, nutmeg, salt, and baking soda; stir to combine.

  4. Gradually add flour and mix until smooth.

  5. Fold in chopped raisins.

Bake

  1. Pour batter into greased baking pan and bake for 30-40 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.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread dough
Provides the base body and yeast-leavened crumb that gives the cake its bread-like texture.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries the spices.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in sour milk to produce gas that leavens the batter.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and moisture as it sets.

The step that matters

Adding the flour. Mixing the flour until just smooth keeps gluten development controlled, so the cake stays tender rather than tough.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sugar, egg, milk, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg):

  1. Allspicethe original
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, egg, milk, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg. 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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