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Dessert

Cold Water Cake

A cake made with sugar, butter, egg yolks, cold water, spices, raisins, flour, and beaten egg whites, baked and iced.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Cold Water 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. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, mix together the sugar, butter, egg yolks, and water.

  3. Add the baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, vanilla, nutmeg, raisins, and flour. Mix until well combined.

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

Bake and ice

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. For the icing, combine 1 cup sugar, ½ cup milk, and butter the size of an egg in a saucepan.

  3. Boil for 15 minutes, then spread the icing on top of the cooled cake.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that lifts the cake's crumb.
Egg yolks
Add richness and fat, contributing to a tender texture and moisture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter's acidity to produce gas, helping the cake rise.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness, moisture and flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep it moist and browned.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stiff whites hold the air that lifts the batter. Folding gently keeps that air in; vigorous stirring deflates the foam and leaves a denser cake.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, cinnamon, clove, allspice, 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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