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Dessert

Spice Cake

A baked cake made with brown sugar, butter or lard, flour, sour milk, baking soda, spices, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Spice Cake

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 ↓

Spice 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 the oven to 350°F (175°C).

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

  3. In another bowl, mix the baking soda into the sour milk.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour with the spices.

Make the batter

  1. Add the flour mixture to the creamed sugar and butter, alternating with the sour milk mixture.

  2. Beat in the eggs until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake 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.

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.

  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. Clove + allspicetop 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

Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake's crumb as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the crumb.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture and a deeper molasses flavour.
Butter or lard
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich, smooth crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tenderness.

The step that matters

Alternating the flour mixture and sour milk. Adding the dry and liquid ingredients in portions keeps the batter smooth and emulsified. Overmixing after the flour goes in develops gluten and can make the cake tough.

Swap the allspice

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, 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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