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Dessert

Spice Cake

A moist cake flavored with cinnamon, nutmeg, and raisins, baked with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and sour milk.

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

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 ↓

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.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

  4. Mix the dry ingredients into the creamed mixture alternately with the sour milk.

  5. Fold in the chopped raisins.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 30-40 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + raisintop 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the cake sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that lifts the cake.
Baking powder
Adds additional lift so the cake rises evenly in the oven.
Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air and adds tenderness and flavor.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that activates the baking soda.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.

The step that matters

Mix the dry ingredients in alternately with the sour milk. Adding the flour and liquid in alternating portions keeps the batter smooth and well emulsified. Overmixing after the flour goes in develops gluten and can make the cake tough.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Blueberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, egg, cinnamon, nutmeg, milk. 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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Raisin 13Molasses 12Eggless 6Chocolate 5Golden 4Christmas 3 See all 307 →

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