Name: Baking Powder Cinnamon Cake
Ingredients: 1 cup sugar; 2 teaspoons baking powder; ½ cup butter; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 cup flour; Juice and rind of 1 lemon or 1 teaspoon vanilla; 2 whole eggs; 1 cup milk; Butter, sugar, cinnamon, and almonds for topping

Why it works: Cinnamon and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Baking Powder Cinnamon Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the batter

In a bowl, mix together sugar, baking powder, butter, salt, flour, and lemon juice and rind or vanilla.
In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and mix with milk.
Combine the egg mixture with the dry ingredients and mix well.
Pour the batter into a large flat pan.

Top and bake

Sprinkle the top with butter, sugar, cinnamon, and almonds.
Bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown.

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.

Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,514 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,673 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,950 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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

Eggs: Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Flour: Forms the main structure of the cake as the batter sets.
Butter: Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the top brown during baking.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter to make the cake rise.
Milk: Adds moisture and hydrates the flour to form the batter.

Swap the lemon

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

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Figfits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, egg, milk, cinnamon, almond. 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.