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Dessert

Spice Cakes

A yeast‑leavened cake flavored with ground spices, baked or fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Spice Cakes

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 Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, butter, ground spices, salt, and yeast.

  2. Gradually add warm milk to form a nice dough.

  3. Cover the dough and let it rise in a warm place for 3 hours.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough thin and cut it into small cakes.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 10 to 12 minutes.

  3. Alternatively, these can be fried like doughnuts.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter 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 structure that holds the dough together as it rises and bakes.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and some browning in the oven.
Warm milk
Hydrates the flour to form the dough and gives moisture for gluten development.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise. The rise needs a warm place and enough time for yeast to ferment and produce gas. Under-proofed dough bakes up dense, while the yeast needs a warm environment to stay active.

“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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