Name: Spice Cake
Ingredients: 1½ cups sugar; 1 cup butter; 6 eggs; ½ cup sweet milk; 3 cups flour; 2 tablespoons cinnamon; ½ tablespoon cloves; 1 teaspoon cream of tartar; ½ teaspoon baking soda

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

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.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Sift the baking soda, spices, and cream of tartar into the flour.
In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.
Add the egg yolks and beat well.
In a separate bowl, whip the egg whites until frothy and then fold them into the mixture.
Add the sifted flour mixture and sweet milk, mixing until just combined.

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.

Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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

Swap the clove

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

Nutmegfits better
Cardamomfits better
Allspicefits about as well
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, milk, flour, cinnamon, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.