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Spice Cake

A spiced cake made with butter, brown sugar, flour, eggs, molasses, sour milk, spices, and baking soda.

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

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. 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 the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream the butter and dark brown sugar together.

  2. Add the eggs, molasses, and sour milk; mix well.

  3. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cloves, allspice, and cinnamon.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.

  5. Divide the batter into two greased cake pans.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

  2. Let cool, then ice and fill with icing as desired.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and tenderness by coating flour and carrying flavor through the crumb.
Dark brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep caramel flavor that helps browning.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake's crumb as the batter bakes.
Eggs
Add structure, binding, and richness to the batter.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to lift the batter and tenderize the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that makes the cake rise.

The step that matters

Combine the dry ingredients into the wet mixture gently. Stirring only until just combined keeps gluten development low, so the cake stays tender rather than tough and dense. Overmixing after the flour goes in toughens the crumb.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Cardamomfits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

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