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Dessert

Birthday Cake

A sweet cake with butter, sugar, flour, milk, raisins, eggs, baking powder, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Birthday Cake

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).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the milk, then add the flour and baking powder.

  4. Fold in the raisins and spices.

  5. Pour the batter into a greased round cake pan.

Bake

  1. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Sugar
Creamed with butter to add sweetness and help create a fluffy structure.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter set as it bakes.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes lighter.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form a smooth, pourable batter.

The step that matters

Creaming the butter and sugar. Beating until light and fluffy traps air in the fat, which expands in the oven and helps lift the cake. Under-creaming leaves a denser texture.

Swap the clove

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

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

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