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Dessert

Lincoln Cake

A sweet cake made with lard, sugar, flour, eggs, sour milk, citron, rose water, spices, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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 ↓

Lincoln 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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the lard and sugar together.

  2. Add the whipped yolks of the eggs to the mixture.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in a little hot water and stir it into the sour milk or cream.

  4. Add the milk mixture to the cake batter.

  5. Incorporate the grated nutmeg, powdered cinnamon, and flour.

  6. Stir in the rose water and the dredged citron.

  7. Finally, fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a square, shallow baking pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) until done.

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.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  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

Lard
Creamed with sugar to give the cake tenderness and a rich, fine crumb.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and add moisture; whipped whites lighten the batter and help it rise.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and, creamed with lard, traps air for a lighter texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk or cream to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Sour milk or cream
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tang.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whites hold air that gives the cake lift. Stirring them in vigorously or too long deflates the foam, leaving a dense cake.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, egg, milk, cinnamon, rose):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Allspicefits less well
  4. Clovefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, egg, milk, cinnamon, rose. 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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