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Dessert

Spice Cake

A cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, milk, flour, and spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Spice Cake

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 ↓

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.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the milk.

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, cinnamon, baking soda, nutmeg, and cloves.

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

  6. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

Bake

  1. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center 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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavour.
Sugar
Creams with butter for airiness and adds sweetness and gentle browning.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, binding the batter as it sets in the oven.
Flour
Forms the cake's main structure once its proteins set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to release gas that makes the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda, helping the cake rise and stay tender.

The step that matters

Mixing the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Overmixing once the flour is added develops gluten, which makes the cake tough and dense. Mix only until just combined so the crumb stays tender.

“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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