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Dessert

Spiced Raisin Cake

A moist cake made with sugar, butter, eggs, milk, flour, sea foam, spices, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Spiced Raisin 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.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Stir in the milk and mix until combined.

  5. Gradually add the flour and sea foam, mixing until smooth.

Spice and layer

  1. Take one-third of the batter and mix in the cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and chopped raisins.

  2. Pour the plain batter into prepared cake pans and layer with the spiced batter.

Bake and finish

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

  2. Let cool and layer with icing between each layer.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  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

Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps trap air for a lighter crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavor, and holds air when creamed with sugar.
Eggs
Provide structure and binding, and help the batter hold together as it bakes.
Flour
Builds the cake's structure as its proteins set during baking.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter to a smooth consistency.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness to the spiced layer.

The step that matters

Cream the sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Beating sugar into butter traps tiny air pockets that expand in the oven and lighten the crumb. Under-creamed butter, or butter that is too cold, leaves a denser cake.

Swap the clove

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

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

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