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Dessert

Dixie Cake

A soft cake made with butter, flour, eggs, sugar, spices, brandy, and rose water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Dixie Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Chop the butter into the flour.

  2. Beat the eggs and sugar together until creamy.

  3. Stir in the spices, brandy, and enough rose water to make a soft cake dough.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into small buttered cake pans.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until a toothpick comes out clean.

  3. Cool before serving.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Rubbed into the flour, it adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together.
Eggs
Bind the dough and help give the cake its structure and lift.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and stay moist.
Brandy
Adds moisture and aroma to the soft dough.

The step that matters

Bake until a toothpick comes out clean. The cake keeps baking as it sits, so pulling it too late can dry it out. A clean toothpick shows the centre has set, and the cake should be checked at the stated point rather than left in the oven longer than needed.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicethe original
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, egg, sugar, clove, cinnamon, brandy. 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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