Name: Columbia Cake
Ingredients: 1 cup butter; 2 cups brown sugar; 1 cup milk; 3 cups flour; 1 cup seeded raisins; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; ½ teaspoon allspice; ½ teaspoon grated nutmeg; 2 teaspoons baking powder

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 ↓

Columbia 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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream the butter and brown sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add the milk and mix well.
Gradually stir in the flour, followed by the raisins, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, and baking powder.
Divide the batter into two greased cake pans.

Bake and finish

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Let the cakes cool before icing with white icing.

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.

Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,536 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,331 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Creaming with sugar traps air and adds richness and tender texture.
Brown sugar: Creamed with butter to add sweetness, moisture and a caramel flavour.
Flour: Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder: Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Milk: Adds moisture and helps form a smooth, pourable batter.

Swap the allspice

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

Cardamomfits better
Clovefits about as well
Allspicethe original
Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, flour, raisin, cinnamon, nutmeg. 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.