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Dessert

Spice Cakes

A sweet baked cake flavored with molasses, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

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

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spice Cakes

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 the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

  3. Add the molasses, eggs, and sour milk, mixing well.

  4. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

Make the batter

  1. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until combined.

  2. Pour the batter into patty pans or muffin rings.

Bake

  1. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick 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.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich texture.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to lift the batter as it bakes.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and deep color to the cake.
Sour milk
Adds acidity to activate the baking soda and tenderize the crumb.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda with the dry ingredients. Baking soda needs an acid, here the sour milk and molasses, to produce gas. Sifting it evenly through the flour keeps the rise even and avoids bitter pockets of unreacted soda.

“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.

More spice cake recipes

Raisin 13Molasses 12Eggless 6Chocolate 5Golden 4Christmas 3 See all 307 →

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