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Spice Cake

A moist cake flavored with cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg, made with butter, sugar, eggs, sour cream, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 the batter

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

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

  3. Add the yolks of the eggs and sour cream, mixing well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.

  6. In another bowl, beat the egg white until stiff peaks form, then gently fold it into the batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 30-35 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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake, tenderizes the crumb and helps the surface brown.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavor when creamed with sugar.
Eggs
Yolks add richness and structure, while the beaten white adds lift and airiness.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and tenderness, and its acidity reacts with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity of the sour cream to produce gas that helps the cake rise.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg white. Stiff egg white traps air that lifts the batter. Stirring vigorously or overmixing deflates this foam, which leaves the cake dense and flat. Fold gently, just until no white streaks remain.

Swap the clove

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

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

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