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Dessert

Pint Cake

A cake made with cream, sugar, flour, eggs, spices, raisins, and baked.

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

Pint 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 the cake

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

  2. In a large bowl, mix the cream, sugar, flour, egg yolks, baking soda, cloves, cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg until well combined.

  3. Pour the batter into two square bread pans.

Bake and make the filling

  1. Bake until golden brown, about 30-40 minutes.

  2. For the filling, cook the raisins in a small pot until soft.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then fold in the cooked raisins and sugar.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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 sets the cake crumb as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter for a tender crumb.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks to lighten the filling and add airy volume.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter's acidity to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Raisins
Cooked until soft to add moisture and sweetness to the filling.

The step that matters

Folding the cooked raisins into the whipped egg whites. Overmixing or deflating the whites removes the air that gives the filling its lightness, so fold gently until just combined.

Swap the clove

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

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

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

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