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Dessert

Brown Sugar Cake

A moist cake made with brown sugar, raisins, and sour milk, topped with a brown sugar frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Brown Sugar Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the cake

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

  2. In a bowl, mix together brown sugar, egg yolk, cloves, cinnamon, raisins, sour milk, and baking soda.

  3. Gradually add flour and beat well until smooth.

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

Make the frosting

  1. For the frosting, combine 1½ cups brown sugar with enough water to prevent burning.

  2. Boil until it threads from the spoon.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten egg white and vanilla until nearly cold.

  4. Spread the frosting over the cooled cake.

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. Raisin + flourtop 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. Cinnamon + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  5. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and gives the cake and frosting their caramel flavour.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the batter into a tender crumb.
Sour milk
Provides moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to lift the cake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
All-purpose flour
Builds the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Egg white
Whipped into the hot sugar syrup, it helps create a light, fluffy frosting.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg white into the syrup until nearly cold. If the syrup is too hot the egg white can scramble, and if it cools too long it sets too firmly to spread. Stirring while it cools gives a smooth, fluffy frosting.

Swap the clove

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

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

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