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Dessert

Thanksgiving Cake

A cake made from bread dough, eggs, flour, raisins, sugar, citron, and spices, baked and frosted.

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 ↓

Thanksgiving 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.

Prepare the dough

  1. When the bread dough is ready for shaping, divide it into halves.

Mix and shape

  1. Add the eggs, flour, raisins, sugar, citron, cinnamon, baking soda, mace, and nutmeg to the dough.

  2. Mix and beat the ingredients with your hands, using a firm motion directed toward your body.

  3. Turn the mixture into a tube cake pan.

  4. Let it rise until it is not quite double in bulk.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until done.

  2. Pour maple sugar frosting over the cake and decorate with pecan or hickory nuts.

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. Flour + raisintop 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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread dough
Provides the yeasted base that rises and gives the cake its bread-like crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter set as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the fruit and dough together.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps browning in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidic ingredients to add lift and help the cake rise.

The step that matters

Let it rise until not quite double in bulk. Over-proofing lets the gluten structure weaken and collapse, while under-proofing leaves a dense cake with poor lift. Stopping just short of double gives the best volume and crumb.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, flour, raisin, sugar, 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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