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Dessert

Golden Spice-cake

A moist cake made with egg yolks, brown sugar, molasses, butter, sour milk, flour, spices, and optional raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Golden Spice-cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate 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.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg yolks, whole egg, brown sugar, and butter in a large bowl until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the molasses, flour, and sour milk, and mix well.

  3. Stir in the baking soda, ground cloves, cinnamon, ginger, grated nutmeg, and cayenne pepper.

  4. If using raisins, flour them and fold them into the batter last.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 30–40 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.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter for a tender crumb.
Butter
Adds fat that gives the cake a soft, tender texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that react with the baking soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness, and color to the cake.

The step that matters

Stir in the baking soda. Baking soda needs an acid, such as the sour milk and molasses, to react and release gas. Mixing it in evenly and then baking promptly keeps the rise uniform and the crumb fine.

Swap the clove

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

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

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