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Dessert

Spice Cake

A spiced cake made with golden syrup, butter, lemon rind, spices, flour, candied peel, cherries, and currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Spice Cake

Why it works: Lemon and coriander match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,498 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Spice Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Combine golden syrup, butter, lemon rind, allspice, ginger, coriander, and aniseed in an enamelled saucepan.

  2. Heat gently without letting it get too hot.

  3. Add enough flour to form a thick dough and let it rest in a cool place.

  4. Mix in chopped candied peel, cherries, and currants.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough to 1 inch thick.

  2. Cut the dough into squares.

  3. Bake the squares in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C).

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. Lemon + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,498 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Allspice + coriandertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Golden syrup
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the dough hold together and brown.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture in the dough.
Flour
Provides the structure that turns the mixture into a thick, cuttable dough.
Allspice
Contributes the warm, aromatic spice flavour of the cake.
Powdered ginger
Contributes warm, pungent spice flavour that defines the cake.

The step that matters

Heat gently without letting it get too hot. Overheating the golden syrup and butter can scorch the sugars and make the mixture bitter, while gentle heat keeps them smooth and blended before the flour is added.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (syrup, butter, lemon, allspice, ginger, coriander, flour):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against syrup, butter, lemon, allspice, ginger, coriander, 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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