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Dessert

One, Two, Three, Four Cake

A spiced cake made with butter, sugar, flour, milk, eggs, baking soda, cream of tartar, and optional lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

One, Two, Three, Four Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Beat the butter until creamy, then gradually add the sugar.

  3. Mix in the spices and any liquor you are using.

  4. Add the milk and then the eggs, beating well.

  5. In a separate bowl, mix the baking soda and cream of tartar with the flour.

  6. Combine the dry ingredients with the wet mixture thoroughly.

  7. If using fruit, add it last.

  8. Divide the batter into two portions; leave one plain and spice the other with cinnamon, clove, allspice, and nutmeg.

Bake

  1. Pour into greased and lined baking sheets.

  2. Bake 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.

  1. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter hold together as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the cake's main structure once its starches set in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Provides acidity that activates the baking soda and helps give a lighter texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form a smooth, pourable batter.

The step that matters

Dividing the batter into two portions. Splitting the batter after the leavening is mixed in means each portion must be divided evenly so the plain and spiced halves bake at the same rate and rise similarly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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