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Dessert

Spiced Cake

A cake made with sugar, butter, sour milk, raisins, flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.

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

Spiced Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the baking powder with part of the flour.

  3. In another bowl, combine the raisins with the remaining flour.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the sour milk, then mix in the flour and baking powder mixture.

  3. Fold in the floured raisins.

  4. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

Bake

  1. Bake for about 30-40 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.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  5. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the cake's main structure once mixed with liquid and leavening.
Butter
Adds fat and tenderness, and helps the creamed batter hold air for a light texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, fluffy texture when creamed with butter.
Sour milk
Supplies moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Baking powder
Provides additional leavening so the cake rises during baking.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Fold in the floured raisins. Tossing the raisins in flour helps keep them suspended in the batter instead of sinking to the bottom. Folding gently preserves the air created by creaming, so the cake stays light.

“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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