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Dessert

Quick Cake

A quick, moist cake made with butter, milk, eggs, flour, sugar, spices, and chopped dates.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Quick 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

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine all the ingredients.

  2. Beat the mixture for three minutes.

  3. Pour the batter into a loaf pan.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes.

  2. Serve the cake the same day it is baked.

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 + datestop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together283 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

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

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

  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

Soft butter
Adds fat that keeps the crumb tender and rich.
Eggs
Provide structure and help bind the batter as it sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and lightens.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as it bakes.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture and a caramel-like flavour.
Dates
Add moisture and natural sweetness to the crumb.

The step that matters

Beat the mixture for three minutes. Beating combines the ingredients evenly and starts building structure, but overbeating after the flour is in can make the cake tough. Beat just long enough to combine the batter smoothly.

Swap the dates

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Datesthe original

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