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Dessert

Jenny Lind Cake

A spiced cake with molasses, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, and flour, baked in layers.

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 ↓

Jenny Lind 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 the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, mix sugar, milk, flour, eggs, and baking powder until smooth.

  3. Divide the batter into three parts, pouring two parts into greased cake pans.

  4. To the remaining batter, add molasses, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, and a little more flour to thicken.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake all layers until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

  2. Once cooled, layer the cakes with thin 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.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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
Bind the batter and add structure as the layers set in the oven.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the layers rise and become light.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness, and color to the spiced layer.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the cake brown and stay tender.

The step that matters

Adding flour to the spiced batter. Molasses and spices change the batter's thickness, so the extra flour must be added until the portion is thick enough to hold its shape and bake evenly. Too little makes the spiced layer runny and sunken, while too much makes it dense and dry.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cardamomfits about as well
  2. Allspicefits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Gingerfits less well

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