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Dessert

Spice Cakes

A sweet cake flavored with molasses, spices, and fig mince, baked until golden.

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

Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spice Cakes

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

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix molasses, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, allspice, and paprika.

  2. Stir in vinegar and warm water until combined.

  3. Add fig mince, eggs, flour, and melted Ko-nut; mix well.

  4. Pour the batter into shallow pans.

Bake

  1. Bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + figtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together614 recipes

    Shared aroma: cinnamyl acetate (sweet aromatic, cinnamon).

  3. Allspice + figtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together182 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and a deep, sweet flavor to the cake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic vinegar and molasses to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Vinegar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise.

The step that matters

Stir in vinegar and warm water until combined. Vinegar must meet the baking soda in a batter to release carbon dioxide for lift. Combining these steps evenly keeps the rise uniform, so the cake bakes without dense or uneven patches.

Swap the fig

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, cinnamon, allspice, vinegar, egg, flour):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Figthe original
  3. Orangefits about as well
  4. Vanillafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, cinnamon, allspice, vinegar, egg, flour. 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

Raisin 13Molasses 12Eggless 6Chocolate 5Golden 4Christmas 3 See all 307 →

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