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Dessert

Spice Cake

A layered cake flavored with nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon, baked with brown sugar, butter, eggs, baking soda, sour milk, and flour.

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

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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

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. Beat together brown sugar, butter, and eggs until smooth.

  2. Add nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, egg yolks, baking soda, sour milk, and flour; mix until well combined.

Bake and assemble

  1. Divide batter into three layers and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

  2. Once cooled, layer the cakes and frost with white 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.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 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 and richness as the cake sets.
Egg yolks
Add richness and tenderness to the crumb through extra fat and emulsifiers.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Sour milk
Adds acidity that activates the baking soda and tenderizes the crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds moisture, sweetness, and a molasses flavor that deepens the cake.

The step that matters

Bake until a toothpick comes out clean. Baking soda and flour set during baking, so pulling the layers too early can leave them sunken or gummy in the center, while overbaking dries them out.

Swap the clove

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

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

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