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Dessert

Spice Cake

A coffee and spice flavored cake with raisins and walnuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Spice Cake

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Spice Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

  2. In a mixing bowl, cream together the brown sugar and butter.

  3. Stir in the strong coffee, chopped raisins, and chopped walnuts.

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour, cloves, cinnamon, and baking soda.

Make the batter

  1. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.

  2. Fold in the egg.

  3. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.

Bake

  1. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  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. Walnut + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  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

Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown and stay tender.
Butter
Adds fat that creams with sugar to trap air and give a tender crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as the batter bakes.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidity in the batter to produce gas that helps the cake rise.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.. Mixing too long after adding flour develops gluten, which makes the cake tough and dense. Stopping once combined keeps the crumb tender.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, coffee, raisin, flour, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, coffee, raisin, flour, clove, cinnamon. 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.

More spice cake recipes

Raisin 13Molasses 12Eggless 6Chocolate 5Golden 4Christmas 3 See all 307 →

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