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Dessert

Variety Cake

A spiced cake with raisins, currants, and a vanilla icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Variety Cake

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 ↓

Variety 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.

Make the batter

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

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the milk, flour, egg yolks, and baking powder, and mix well.

  4. Divide the batter into three portions.

  5. To one portion, add cinnamon, cloves, raisins, and currants.

Bake the layers

  1. Pour the dark mixture into the middle layer of three cake pans.

  2. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make the icing and assemble

  1. Beat the egg whites.

  2. Gradually add powdered sugar.

  3. Flavor the icing with vanilla.

  4. Spread between the layers.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps keep the cake tender and lightly browned.
Egg yolks
Add richness and moisture, and help bind the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Egg whites
Beaten into the icing to give it a light, airy texture.

The step that matters

Bake until a toothpick comes out clean. Baking past the point of doneness dries out the crumb, while underbaking leaves wet batter in the center that can collapse as it cools. A toothpick test shows when the starches have set and the interior is cooked through.

Swap the clove

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

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

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