Skip to main content
Dessert

Sand Cake

A spiced cake with brown sugar, sour cream, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Sand Cake

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Sand 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 the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar.

  3. Add the sour cream and mix well.

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and nutmeg.

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

  6. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then fold them into the batter.

Bake and cool

  1. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Let the layers cool before frosting.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  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

Eggs
Whites are whipped to stiff peaks and folded in, adding lift and an airy crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's shape as it bakes.
Butter
Creamed with the sugar to trap air and add richness and tenderness.
Light brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture and a caramel-like depth of flavour.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and acidity, which keeps the crumb tender.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream to produce gas that helps the cake rise.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites beaten to stiff peaks hold the air that lifts the cake. Overmixing when folding deflates them, leaving a dense layer, so fold gently until no white streaks remain.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, butter, flour, egg, cinnamon, clove. 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.

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipes