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Dessert

Spice Cake

A spiced cake made with sugar, butter, flour, milk, eggs, molasses, spices, and optional raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Spice Cake

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. 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

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Beat in the egg yolks, then add the egg whites and spices.

  3. Stir in the molasses, flour, and cream of tartar, mixing well.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk and add it to the mixture.

  5. If desired, fold in the chopped raisins or other fruit.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 30-35 minutes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air and add richness and tenderness.
Eggs
Add structure and binding, helping the cake hold its shape as it sets.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness with a slight acidity.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and stay moist.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in the milk and add it to the mixture. Baking soda needs an acid to react and raise the cake. Dissolving it evenly in the milk spreads it through the batter so the cake rises uniformly rather than in pockets.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

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