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Dessert

Spice Cake

A moist cake made with butter, brown sugar, molasses, eggs, buttermilk, baking soda, flour, raisins, currants, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Spice Cake

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. 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. Cream the butter and brown sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the molasses and eggs, mixing well.

  4. Stir in the buttermilk and baking soda.

  5. Gradually add the flour, mixing until just combined.

  6. Fold in the raisins, currants, and spices.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 30-40 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  5. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and a tender crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and moisture as the cake sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk and molasses to release gas that helps the cake rise.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake once its proteins set in the oven.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness, and a dark color with a slight acidity.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity that activates the baking soda and tenderizes the crumb.

The step that matters

Adding the flour. Mixing flour only until just combined keeps gluten development low, so the cake stays tender rather than tough and dense.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, molasses, egg, buttermilk, flour, raisin. 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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