Name: Spice Cakes
Ingredients: 1 cup molasses; 1½ cups butter; ¼ teaspoon cloves; ¼ teaspoon cinnamon; ¼ teaspoon allspice; 1 teaspoon baking soda; sour milk (enough to dissolve baking soda); flour (enough to roll)

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Spice Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

In a bowl, combine molasses and butter.
Add cloves, cinnamon, allspice, and baking soda dissolved in sour milk.
Mix well and gradually add flour until the dough is firm enough to roll.

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.

Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,536 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, butter, clove, cinnamon, milk, flour):

Nutmegfits better
Allspicethe original
Cardamomfits about as well
Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, butter, clove, cinnamon, milk, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.