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Baking

Lep Kuchen or Spice Cake

A spiced cake made with eggs, brown sugar, molasses, flour, citron, nuts and lemon, then iced with egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Lep Kuchen or Spice Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

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

  2. Beat the eggs and sugar together until well combined.

  3. Gradually add the flour and other ingredients, mixing until smooth.

  4. Pour the batter into 2 large baking pans.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

  2. While still warm, cut into small squares.

  3. Ice the squares with the reserved egg whites.

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. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Almond + pecanstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Provide structure and lift, and the whites are reserved for the icing.
Light brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Dark molasses
Adds moisture, deep flavor, and darker color.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and become light.

The step that matters

Judging when the cake is done. Baking too long dries the crumb, while underbaking leaves it wet in the center. A toothpick inserted in the center should come out clean, showing the structure has set through.

Swap the pecans

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

  1. Pistachiofits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Pecansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour, molasses, almond, lemon, 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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