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Dessert

Spice Cake

A moist cake flavored with molasses, spices, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Spice Cake

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. 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.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the egg, molasses, sugar, melted butter, and milk.

  2. Add the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, spices, and vinegar. Mix until smooth.

  3. Pour the batter into a round pan or gem pans.

Bake

  1. Bake for 20 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness to the crumb.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness to the cake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic vinegar and cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness, moisture, and rich flavor.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps hydrate the flour to form the batter.

The step that matters

Mixing in the baking soda and acids. Baking soda needs the acids from vinegar and cream of tartar to release gas for rising. Once the batter is mixed and in the pan, it should go into the oven promptly, because the leavening reaction begins right away and loses strength while the batter waits.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, molasses, sugar, butter, milk, flour, cream. 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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