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Dessert

Cup Cake

A sweet cake made with sugar, butter, eggs, cloves, raisins, sour milk, baking soda, nutmeg, flour, and citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cup 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. Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

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

  3. Stir in the cloves, raisins, sour milk, baking soda, and nutmeg.

  4. Gradually add the flour, mixing until just combined.

  5. Fold in the chopped citron.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into two greased loaf pans.

  2. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for a lighter crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps it brown while creaming with butter adds air.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tenderness.

The step that matters

Adding the flour. Mixing only until combined keeps gluten development limited, so the cake stays tender rather than tough and dense.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

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