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Dessert

A Very Cheap and Good Cake

A dense cake made with lard, molasses, sour milk, egg, spices, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

A Very Cheap and Good 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.

Mix the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, mix the lard, molasses, sour milk, and egg until well combined.

  3. Add the cinnamon, grated nutmeg, and lemon extract, and mix thoroughly.

  4. Gradually add flour until you achieve a thick batter consistency. Beat the mixture well.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased tin pan.

  2. Bake for 1.5 to 2 hours, or until a toothpick inserted in the center 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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cinnamon + flourtop 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

Lard
Adds fat that keeps the cake tender and moist.
Molasses
Provides sweetness, dark colour and moisture.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with leavening and adds tenderness and moisture.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Flour
Forms the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.

The step that matters

Baking time and doneness test. A long, slow bake lets the centre set fully without drying the edges. The toothpick test confirms the centre is cooked through, since a dense batter can look done on top while still being wet inside.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, egg, cinnamon, nutmeg, flour. 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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