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Dessert

Hartford Cake

A raisin cake flavored with cinnamon and cloves, baked in loaf pans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Hartford 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).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

  2. Add the eggs and mix well.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in hot water and add it to the mixture.

  4. Sift the flour with cream of tartar, cinnamon, and cloves, then gradually add to the wet ingredients.

  5. Fold in the chopped raisins.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into two greased loaf pans.

  2. Bake for about 45-50 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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps give the cake a tender crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and binding, helping the batter hold together as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar and hot water to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Provides acidity that reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda dissolved in hot water. Baking soda needs an acid, here the cream of tartar, to release gas and lift the batter. Dissolving it evenly in the liquid and mixing it through the batter spreads that lift consistently, so the cake rises evenly rather than in pockets.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, raisin, sugar, butter, flour, cinnamon. 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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