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Dessert

Spice Cake

A spiced cake with raisins, baked at 350°F, finished with a sugar glaze and raisins.

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

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 ↓

Spice 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.

Make the cake

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

  2. In a large bowl, mix the sugar, sour milk, beaten eggs, and butter until well combined.

  3. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, nutmeg, and baking powder.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.

  5. Fold in the floured raisins.

  6. Divide the batter into two greased cake pans and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make the frosting

  1. For the frosting, boil 1 cup of granulated sugar with 5 tablespoons of boiling water until it reaches a hair stage.

  2. Remove from heat and pour over 1 beaten egg white, stirring constantly.

  3. Stir in 1 cup of chopped raisins and mix until smooth.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Milk + buttertop 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 moisture to the crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise and keeps it tender.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it stay moist and brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Mixing the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Add the dry ingredients gradually and stop mixing once just combined. Overmixing develops too much gluten in the flour, which makes the cake tough and dense.

Swap the clove

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

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

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

More spice cake recipes

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