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Dessert

Cinnamon Cake

A simple cake made with sugar, butter, egg, milk, flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Cinnamon Cake

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cinnamon 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.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the egg and milk, mixing well.

  3. Sift the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda together, then add to the mixture.

  4. Pour the batter into a shallow pan.

Bake

  1. Sprinkle the top with sugar and cinnamon.

  2. Bake for about 15 minutes or until golden brown.

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps give the cake its structure.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavour.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that lifts the cake.

The step that matters

Sift the dry ingredients and fold them in gently. Sifting spreads the baking soda and cream of tartar evenly so the leavening reacts uniformly. Overmixing after the flour goes in develops gluten, which can make the cake tough and dense.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonthe original
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Jalapenofits less well

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