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Dessert

Centennial Cakes

A sweet raisin cake made with brown sugar, eggs, butter, spices, and flour, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Centennial Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. In a mixing bowl, combine light brown sugar, eggs, melted butter, chopped raisins, sweet milk, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, ground clove, and nutmeg.

  2. Add enough flour to create a soft dough that can be handled for rolling.

  3. Cover the mixture and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.

Shape and bake

  1. On a floured board, roll out part of the mixture to ½ inch thickness.

  2. Use a round cutter dipped in flour to shape the dough.

  3. Place the shaped cakes on a buttered baking sheet and bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure as the cakes set in the oven.
Light brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture and a caramel-like flavour to the cakes.
Melted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts to lift the dough and help the cakes rise and brown.
Flour
Provides the structure that lets the dough be rolled and cut.

The step that matters

Chilling the dough before rolling. The mixture is soft and sticky, so chilling firms the fat so it can be rolled and cut cleanly. Skipping it can make the dough tear and spread.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinthe original
  4. Lemonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, butter, milk, cinnamon, clove, 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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