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Dessert

Spiced Mountain Cake

A spiced cake with lemon icing made from butter, sugar, eggs, flour, spices, and powdered sugar.

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

Spiced Mountain Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and granulated sugar together.

  2. Add the yolks of the 5 eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the cinnamon and nutmeg.

  4. Alternately add the milk and flour mixed with baking powder, starting and ending with flour.

  5. Fold in the beaten whites of 2 eggs gently.

  6. Divide the batter into 3 jelly cake pans.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 15 minutes.

Make the icing and finish

  1. For the icing, beat the whites of 3 eggs until stiff, then gradually add the powdered sugar.

  2. Separate the icing into two parts; use the larger portion to cover the cake layers and the smaller for the outside frosting.

  3. Add the lemon juice to the inside icing and more sugar to prevent it from running.

  4. Grate lemon rind into the outside frosting.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + flourtop 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

Butter
Fat that traps air when creamed with sugar, tenderising the crumb and adding richness.
Granulated sugar
Sweetness that also helps trap air in the creamed butter for a lighter texture.
Eggs
Yolks add richness and emulsify the batter; beaten whites add lift and structure.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure as its starch and proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the cake to rise.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the icing.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites gently. Beaten whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Vigorous stirring knocks that air out, leaving a denser, flatter layer after baking.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cinnamon, sugar, nutmeg, egg, milk, 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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