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Dessert

Spiced-cake

A moist cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, molasses, and spices such as ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.

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 ↓

Spiced-cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the butter and sugar until smooth.

  2. Beat the eggs well and add them to the mixture.

  3. Stir in the ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and grated nutmeg.

  4. Add the water or milk and mix well.

  5. In a separate bowl, combine the baking soda with the molasses until it foams, then add it to the batter.

  6. If the batter is too thin, add more flour until it reaches a thick consistency.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a well-buttered pan or cake cups.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until done, but not scorched or dried.

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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to add richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown while creaming aerates the batter.
Eggs
Provide structure and binding as the batter sets in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and a deep, slightly acidic sweetness.
Flour
Gives the batter body and sets the structure as it bakes.

The step that matters

Combining the baking soda with the molasses. Baking soda needs an acid to react, and molasses supplies it. Letting the mixture foam before adding it to the batter ensures the gas is released and trapped for rising, rather than lost or unevenly distributed.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Marjoramfits less well

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