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Dessert

Variety Cake

A layered cake with raisins and spices, topped with a stiff egg white icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Variety Cake

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 ↓

Variety 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.

Prepare the batter

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

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

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

  4. Stir in the milk and mix until combined.

  5. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder, then gradually add to the wet mixture.

  6. Divide the batter into three equal parts.

Bake the layers

  1. Pour two parts into jelly cake tins and bake until golden.

  2. To the third part, add the raisins, cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg, then pour into a jelly cake tin and bake.

Ice and assemble

  1. For the icing, beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add the powdered sugar, beating until stiff and dry.

  2. Once baked, layer the plain and fruit cakes with icing in between each layer and on top.

  3. Spread the icing on the cakes.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving a tender, fine texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, fluffy creamed base.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cakes rise and become light.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks to form the airy, sweet icing.

The step that matters

Beating the icing to stiff, dry peaks. Egg whites must be beaten until stiff before powdered sugar is added gradually; under-whipped whites stay runny and the icing won't hold between layers, while over-beating makes them grainy and dry.

Swap the clove

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

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

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